


Incommunicado

by enaqua



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26050195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enaqua/pseuds/enaqua
Summary: In his last year of middle school, Sho is forced to confront his future while he navigates tumultuous relationships with his friends, family, and a particular card that his brother gave him.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yu-Gi-Oh! Big Bang 2020





	1. March 2003

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Big Bang 2020 collection. Special thanks to my artists, jess-jessitiz and cieryuu, for their incredible work!

When he was about eight years old, Sho watched his first Duel Monsters tournament on TV. 

He wasn’t interested in it at the time, really, but that night Ryou grabbed the remote from him and announced that the KaibaCorp Grand Prix was starting and he didn’t want to miss it. Sho was upset, of course, because he was missing the cartoon he’d been watching before, but he calmed down when they started watching the duels. 

When Sho asked his brother who he thought would win, Ryou answered in complete confidence: “Katsuya Jonouchi. He was the runner-up in the Duelist Kingdom tournament and semi-finalist in the Battle City. He’s not as good as Yugi Muto or Seto Kaiba, but they aren’t competing in this tournament.”

Ryou was wrong, unfortunately, and Jounouchi lost in the quarterfinals, but Sho took enough of a liking to him that he spent several weeks scouring the hobby shops around town for a Red-Eyes Black Dragon card (needless to say, he never found it).

He started to fit in a little more at school after watching more tournament reruns with Ryou, and the other students in his class actually talked to him when they were discussing Duel Monsters championships during recess. Before long, Sho managed to assemble his own deck. The prospect of dueling filled him with a sense of excitement -- the idea that one day he’d get to be a Pro Duelist on live TV.

...So on the last day of his second year of middle school, Sho finds himself looking absentmindedly towards the window, wondering where all that excitement went.

Not at the window, specifically -- next to the window he sees his classmate, Kenta, sorting through cards under his desk. He hasn’t brought his own cards to school in years, but he does feel a wave of nostalgia hit him when he sees Kenta’s fingers pinched tightly around a Time Wizard card.

After the last bell rings, many of the students have already packed up and file out the door almost instantly, but the bell merely snaps Kenta out of his reverie, and he slowly begins gathering up his cards, leaving him and Sho the only two left in the classroom.

“Um.” Sho timidly approaches. “Hey, uh, Kenta.”

Imperceptibly to Sho, Kenta grimaces. “Marufuji, right?”

“Yeah. Uh … I noticed you have … um…”

“Yeah?”

“You … you have a Time Wizard..?”

“Oh.” Kenta’s face flushes, and he takes the card back out from his bag. “Yeah, but don’t touch it.”

“Oh, no, sorry, I was just curious,” Sho interjects. “I think that’s really cool, though!”

“Thanks. I had to trade about half my old deck for it.” Kenta puts the card back. “It’s too bad that basically nobody in this school duels … you know, I’ve never seen you duel either, Marufuji. Do you even know how to play, or do you just like the cards?”

Sho nods. “I used to duel back in elementary school.”

“You still have a deck?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“Any rares?”

“I’m not sure,” Sho replies. “Uh … is … is Magic Cylinder rare?”

Kenta seems impressed. “Yeah. That’s a good card.”

“Oh! Cool.”

“Yeah.” Kenta stands up and slings his bag over his shoulder. “You should bring your deck to school sometime so we can trade.”

“Trade?” Sho is starting to feel a little excited. “Sure! Yeah, when uh-”

“--When classes start up again next month,” Kenta finishes. “You know what class you’re gonna be in?”

“Class C.”

“Oh. I’m in Class A, so we’ll probably have to meet up after school.” Kenta shuffles past him towards the door. “See you.”

Sho feels his heart flutter in his chest. He doesn’t get invited to hang out with others very often at all, so this is sort of exciting -- and they’ll be trading cards, on top of that.

When Sho comes home that afternoon, he finds that his mother has arrived home early. She notices that he’s in a bit of a good mood, but doesn’t pry in as to why, most likely assuming he’s just happy about the school year being over. He shuts himself in his room and digs his deck out from the bottom of the nightstand drawer, confirming first that he does have a Magic Cylinder before looking through the rest of the cards.

Looking at his old cards starts to bring back memories of dueling in elementary school -- his Little-Winguard, Baby Dragon, Gyroid, Trap Hole, Power Bond--

Sho suddenly feels nauseous as he looks at the last card, and he remembers why he lost interest in dueling.


	2. April 2003

The morning on the first day of his third year of middle school, Sho is woken up a bit earlier than he’d like to the sound of his mother talking on the phone. Regardless, he takes the opportunity to get ready on time, catching snippets of the conversation on his way downstairs.

“You’re still in the Blue dorm this year? ...And how are Tenjoin and Fujiwara? ...Oh, that’s--”

She stops short as she catches sight of Sho in the middle of buttoning up his uniform.

“Sho’s up early -- last year of middle school! Want to say hi?”

Sho doesn’t move an inch, but he feels a bit shaky when his mother approaches.

“Here he is.”

Sho almost idly clasps the phone when it’s brought up to his ear, the cord stretched thin from the receiver. After a few moments of tentative silence, he’s about to speak when he hears a voice on the other end first.

“Hey, Sho.”

“Nii-san … hi.”

Another painful bit of silence.

“Last year of middle school,” Ryou repeats. “So next year you’ll be in high school.”

“Yeah.”

“Just a tip -- don’t slack off this year,” he continues. “They’re going to be preparing you for high school entrance exams. You should also be thinking about which public school you want to go to -- you can only apply to one, right?”

Ryou goes to a special private school which he applied to in addition to public school -- but his public school exam didn’t matter to him, as he was already near-guaranteed to get into the vocational Duel Academia.

“Um, yeah,” Sho affirms. “I was thinking of applying to Tokuhara … number three in the district.”

Ryou pauses. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Like I said, you’ll have to study hard this year. Because that’s a pretty big goal.”

“I will.”

“Alright. Pass the phone back to mom.”

Sho does so without a moment’s hesitation, going back to scrabbling at the buttons of his uniform before heading out the door, only noticing and reciprocating at the last minute when his mother waves goodbye to him. 

He makes his way to school without much trouble, finding that he’s actually ten minutes early this time rather than his usual barely-two-minutes-late. As more of his classmates begin to settle in, there’s some idle chatter among them.

“Not that many people from our old class this year,” a student in the front of the class notes. “I think it’s just you, me, Marufuji, and Naoko.”

He says “Marufuji” in a rather uninviting way, making it evident that Sho’s not part of the conversation.

Sho zones out for a bit, staring at the clock--

“Morning, Sho.”

A girl makes her way to the back of the classroom, swinging her back down onto the desk next to him.

“Oh … Hitomi?”

“Yeah.” She settles in next to him, taking Sho by surprise. “I haven’t seen you since first year. You’re like, the only person I know in here … everything good?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That’s good,” Hitomi says. “I can’t wait to get out of here, honestly. Like, ugh! I just want to get the exams over with already, you know? Get out of this school.”

“Haha, yeah…”

Sho is starting to get nervous that he’ll say the wrong thing as Hitomi keeps talking, but luckily for him the teacher walks in at that moment and starts taking attendance.

\--

“Marufuji.”

As he’s on his way out the school building that afternoon, Sho stiffens when he sees Kenta waving to him. Not waiting for him to walk over, Kenta approaches him.

“You bring your deck?”

“Um…” Sho can feel himself choking up a bit due to nerves. “I … forgot, I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool. We can go to your house.”

“You want to go to my house?” Sho’s heartbeat quickens. He doesn’t usually have friends over that often, and he’s not sure how his mother will react if she sees them. But he can’t call her in advance -- that would make Kenta uncomfortable, right? Or will she even be home that early? “Uh … what about your house?”

“Well, your deck’s at your house, right?”

“Oh yeah.” Okay. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

At least, he keeps telling himself that as he walks Kenta back to his house in relative silence save for the occasional small talk prompted by Kenta.

“Holy crap … are you guys rich or something?” Kenta balks at the size of the Sho’s home when they arrive.

“Um, I don’t think so,” Sho replies.

“Yeah right,” Kenta scoffs. “What do your parents do?”

“Well, uh, my mom is a business analyst, and my dad is a banker. My stepmom works for the bank too--”

“You’re rich, all right.” Kenta approaches the door. “Got a key, or should I knock?”

Sho fishes a key out of his bag and unlocks the door, sighing with relief when he realizes his mother isn’t home yet. Casually, Kenta slips off his shoes next to Sho’s at the door and is about to put his bag on the table when Sho stops him.

“Uh … you can bring it up to my room.”

On the way to Sho’s room, Kenta says, “How many bedrooms do you have?”

“Four.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Just my brother,” Sho replies, “But he’s away at private school.”

“Like, a good one or a shitty one?”

“He’s at, um, Duel Academia.”

Kenta stops dead in the hallway. “No shit.”

“He’s the best student there,” Sho adds hastily. 

“Right.” Kenta seems to have lost interest suddenly. “Is this your room?”

Sho opens the door in front of them in affirmation. Kenta appears mostly impressed at the size of it, only briefly taking note of the video game posters on the wall, old tournament trophies and comics on the shelf, and the console plugged into the wall. Sho himself sees that his mother must have tidied up his room a bit this morning, as his dirty clothes are no longer on the floor, but in the process knocked over a car from his diorama table. Kenta seems to notice Sho looking at the diorama, and goes over to it.

“This is cool,” Kenta says. “Is it supposed to be New York City?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait.” Kenta pulls a miniature airplane from the far end of the diorama, taking note of the cartoonish pair of eyes on it. “Are these Vehicroids? You still have these?”

“Ahh, yeah, I never really got rid of them,” Sho laughs wryly. He’s glad that his closet door is closed, so that Kenta can’t see the giant Truckroid toy on its floor. “Um, let me go get my deck.”

It’s right on the nightstand where he left it last week, and as he retrieves the cards Kenta joins him on the bed, taking his own deck out of his pocket.

“Actually, can I see those?” Kenta doesn’t wait for an answer and takes the cards out of Sho’s hands. “You don’t have a deck box for these?”

“Uh, no. Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” Kenta starts sorting through the cards, as Sho anticipated. “You have Baby Dragon in here? Come on, I’m sure you have better cards than that.”

“Huh?”

Kenta shakes his head as he continues to look through them. “Yeah, these are just a bunch of random Monster Cards that don’t work together. You should switch out for some more Monsters of the same archetype, or at least of the same Monster type. Well, I guess you have a few Vehicroid cards, but I dunno if you really wanna keep those … is this your Magic Cylinder?”

“Yeah.”

“Hold on…” Kenta puts down Sho’s deck and picks up his own, sifting through it. “Since you already have some Machine cards … and I better give you a good one … trade me for one of my Barrel Dragons?”

“Oh -- sure!”

Without hesitation, Kenta puts the card in the deck. “Yeah, I sort of play machines myself. Gun Dragons, specifically.”

“Oh, cool!”

Kenta continues looking through Sho’s deck, stopping short again not long after. “Oh, no way. You have a Power Bond?”

Sho starts feeling queasy again. “Yeah.”

“Oh man … I better trade you something really good for this.”

“Uh.” Sho wishes he didn’t have Power Bond. He wishes he didn’t need to have it in his deck, but -- it’s the only card that Ryou ever gave him. It’s the only card that keeps an amateur duelist like him from being a garbage-tier duelist.

It’s one of the few physical shreds of evidence Sho has that Ryou actually likes him.

“That is really rare,” Kenta continues. “I could trade you two cards for it … how about--”

“Actually, is it okay if I don’t want to trade it?”

“What? But you’re not using it, anyway,” Kenta argues. “You said you haven’t dueled since elementary school.”

“Well, I might want to use it in the future.” That’s a lie.

“I mean, like I said, if you’re dueling in the future, you’re gonna have to change out your deck,” Kenta says. “So you might not even need it anymore. Just think about it, okay? Like … this thing is made for my deck.”

Maybe Kenta is right. Sho is really just holding onto the card as a keepsake of his brother, more or less, and it’s not as though he’s skilled enough to use it. And yet--

“I’ll think about it. I’m really sorry, Kenta…”

“Hey, don’t be sorry, man,” Kenta reassures him, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna help you get a better deck, okay? Like, a good deck. And then we can duel.”

Sho chuckles nervously, remembering what a terrible, terrible duelist he is.


	3. May 2003

The last duel that Sho ever participated in was two years before he entered middle school. If he was to be a bit arrogant about it, the other students considered him one of the best duelists in the school since his brother left, and aside from a few losses on his track record, it made him more confident knowing that he was at least better than his peers at something.

Duel Monsters was getting more popular, and Gorisuke was starting to play as well. Gorisuke, who went out of his way to embarrass Sho every day of class in their third year, was dumb enough to challenge Sho, one of the best duelists in the elementary school. At the time, they’d decided the loser would have to run around the school naked, but Sho wasn’t exactly nervous about losing.

Halfway through the duel, he’d drawn Power Bond. Sho was about to use it to summon Steam Gyroid, and strike the finishing blow against his opponent, when Ryou stepped in and called it off, berating Sho afterwards.

_“You’re not good enough to use that card yet. Actually, I don’t want you using that card until you’re able to play it right.”_

__

__

_“What? Why?”_

_“He had Spellbinding Circle waiting on the field face down, so you wouldn’t have been able to attack this turn. You would’ve taken damage from Power Bond’s effect and lost.”_

Sho owed it to Ryou for saving him the embarrassment of losing, and he was right -- Sho wasn’t good enough to use Power Bond. Because he wasn’t a good duelist -- and it wasn’t like he’d ever be as good as his brother, anyways. Gorisuke never really told anyone about the duel, and Sho decided to bow out gracefully and hide his deck at the bottom of his drawer for the rest of elementary school.

There are other things he’s better at now, anyways. Like building Vehicroid cities -- and he’s not so bad at playing Gradius and Contra, either. 

And after settling in a bit this year, he feels a bit more comfortable around his classmates, too.

“So, do you know what public school you’re going to apply to as your first choice?” Hitomi asks him one day as the bell rings for lunch.

“Tokuhara.”

“Wow, cool! It’s competitive, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m working hard this year.” So far, “working hard” for Sho has meant spending much of the evening playing Contra and cramming his studies in the last hour before he goes to bed, but it’s more effort than he normally puts in. “You?”

“I don’t even know if I’m gonna get in, but my parents are pushing me to go to Yonezato,” Hitomi sighs.

“Woah, for real?” Sho exclaims. Yonezato High School is the best in the district -- he hadn’t realized it before, but Hitomi must be one of the best students in the school if she’s going to apply there. He’s surprised she’s even talking to him.

“I mean, like I said, no chance,” Hitomi insists. “But Tokuhara’s actually my second choice, so maybe we’ll see each other there. I still haven’t gone to my consultation meeting yet, but it’s probably what they’ll recommend me for. Have you had yours yet?”

“I’m waiting till after my midterm,” Sho explains, “So I can get my grades up a bit.”

“Oh, okay! That makes sense.” Hitomi stands up suddenly, her attention drawn to a group of girls beckoning her at the door. “Well, I’m going to lunch, but I’ll see you later!”

Sho stares just a bit too long after Hitomi as she disappears into the hallway.

\--

“So are we gonna duel today, or what?”

Sho and Kenta have been spending a lot of time together over the past month, with Kenta mainly dragging Sho to hobby shops and small gatherings of duelists to help him put together what he considers to be a “decent deck”. To Sho’s relief, Kenta doesn’t seem to object too much to Sho centering his deck around Vehicroids as it had been previously, and in time he’s assembled a deck consisting of them entirely, which makes him very happy.

They spend afternoons like these in the park just a few blocks from the middle school, situated where most duelists in the city tend to gather.

And yet, he’s still anxious at the prospect of dueling. He knows if he loses another duel, he’d just be proving his brother right.

“I’m not … sure.” Sho feels guilty for letting Kenta down again, regretting it as soon as the words leave his mouth.

“Seriously?” Yeah, Kenta is disappointed. “Come on, it’s not the end of the world if you lose or something. And you have your Duel Disk with you anyways.”

“Sorry … yeah, you’re right!” He is being kind of silly -- and he has to get over his anxieties at some point, right? “Yeah, let’s uh, let’s duel.”

Kenta stands up off the bench right away, shoving his deck into his own Duel Disk. “Need help with yours?”

“Nah, I think I got it…” After shuffling his cards hastily, Sho puts his own deck into the slot, pushing the button and waiting for it to connect wirelessly with Kenta’s Disk. As he does so, Kenta takes position several feet away from Sho. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s duel!”

“Let’s duel!” Kenta repeats, already starting to draw his cards. Sho’s heart is thumping, and with shaky fingers he begins assembling his starting hand as well. As he holds it, he realizes just how long it’s been since he last dueled.

“Want to go first?” Kenta asks.

“No, you go ahead,” Sho answers.

“Alright, I’m summoning Machina Gearframe in Attack Mode,” Kenta announces as the hologram of a vibrantly-colored robot appears on the field, the flashing display showing it has 1800 Attack Points and 0 Defense Points. “When this card is summoned, I can add one ‘Machina’ card from my Deck to my hand, so I’m adding Machina Fortress.”

After Kenta digs the card out of his deck, he re-shuffles it and returns it to its slot. “I set one card face down, and end my turn. You’re up.”

“Okay, I play--” Sho falters when the card fails to activate in the Monster Zone.

“You’re still in your Draw Phase,” Kenta points out. “You have to draw at the beginning of each turn, remember?”

“Right. Sorry.” Sho does so, adding Steamroid to his hand. “First, I play Submarineroid!”

Kenta squints as the display reveals the Monster to have 800 Attack Points and 1800 Defense Points. “Nooo, why did you play it in Attack Mode?”

“You’ll see,” Sho grins. Out of everything he forgot, he’s at least starting to remember what the cards do. “Thanks to Submarineroid’s effect, I can attack you directly!”

Submarineroid rams into Kenta, knocking him backwards and reducing his Life Points down to 3200. “And after it attacks, I can change it into Defense Position.”

Kenta stands up and brushes himself off. “Wow, didn’t see that coming.”

Sho beams. “And I’m going to set one card face-down and end my turn!”

“Okay, my turn.” Kenta draws a card. “I’m discarding a Monster from my hand to summon Machina Fortress!”

The Monster in question is big enough that it stands taller than the trees in the park, drawing the attention of a couple of park goers in the middle of a chess game. The display readout reveals its Attack Points to be 2600 - much higher than Submarineroid’s Defense Points.

“I’m attacking your Submarineroid with Machina Fortress!” An enormous gun levels out of one of the fortress’s apertures, shooting straight towards Submarineroid and blasting it to pieces. “Machina Gearframe, attack him directly!”

“Wait! I activate my Trap Card, Pinpoint Guard!” Sho is in oddly high spirits -- he realizes he’s forgotten just how much he’d loved dueling. “I get to summon my Submarineroid back from the Graveyard in Defense Position, and it can’t be destroyed for the rest of this turn.”

Machina Gearframe stops short, returning to Kenta’s side of the field. “Okay. I end my turn.”

Sho draws, realizing he’s just made a bit of a turnaround. “Alright -- first, I’m playing Polymerization! I’m fusing together my Gyroid and my Steamroid to summon Steam Gyroid!”

He hasn’t seen this monster in a long time, but it was one of the first he’d ever put in his deck -- 2200 Attack Points and 1600 Defense Points.

“That’s not enough to beat Machina Fortress,” Kenta says.

“Not unless I activate Limiter Removal,” Sho replies. “It doubles the Attack points of all my Machine type monsters for this turn.” As he switches Submarineroid to Attack Position, its Attack Points rise to 1600 while Steam Gyroid’s become 4400.

Kenta puffs out his cheeks. “Crud.”

“Steam Gyroid, attack Machina Fortress!” Steam Gyroid flattens the fortress into scrap metal, reducing Kenta Life Points further to only 1400.

“Good play,” Kenta compliments him. “But when Machina Fortress is destroyed, I get to destroy one of your Monsters -- and I’m picking Submarineroid.”

Sho groans as his Submarineroid is sent to the Graveyard once again. “Okay. I set a Monster, and another card face down and end my turn--”

He blinks in surprise as his Steam Gyroid disappears before him. “Huh?!”

“Did you forget or something?” Kenta asks. “Limiter Removal’s effect destroys all of your Machine Monsters at the end of the turn.”

“Oh. My bad.” Sho’s face down Trap Card is Mirror Force, which he thinks should be enough for next turn -- and it’s not like he’s in bad shape, as he still has all 4000 of his Life Points.

“I draw.” Kenta smiles a bit. “Okay, I’m gonna wipe you out this turn.”

“Really?” Sho is trying to hide his smugness about his own face down card.

“Uh-huh,” Kenta says, with an equal amount of smugness. “First, I activate my face down card -- Mystical Space Typhoon! It destroys your face down Trap!”

Sho’s breath hitches. That was his ace in the hole -- all he has left is his Truckroid in face down Defense Position, so he just has to keep his fingers crossed that Kenta doesn’t summon anything with Attack Points higher than Truckroid’s 2000 Defense.

“Next, I activate Polymerization, and I’m fusing together my Barrel Dragon and my Blowback Dragon to summon Gatling Dragon!”

True to its name, Sho can’t say it looks like anything other than a dragon-shaped gatling gun, with 2600 Attack Points and 1200 Defense Points. Actually, it seems about equally as strong as each of the two monsters used to summon it. At the very least, he still has time to turn things around.

“Plus, I’m activating my Continuous Spell, Second Coin Toss. Which goes with my Gatling Dragon’s effect -- I get to toss a coin three times, and destroy as many Monsters on the field for as many times as I get heads!”

If his Monster is destroyed, Sho really will lose on this turn. With bated breath, he watches as a giant coin hologram appears and begins throwing itself into the air--

Tails.

Tails.

Tails.

As Sho nearly sighs in relief, he hears Kenta say, “Good thing my Second Coin Toss lets me go again!”

Heads.

Tails.

Heads.

Sho’s Truckroid is obliterated, leaving him wide open for a direct attack. “Oh man … you win, Kenta!”

“One more thing,” Kenta interjects. “I’m activating my Limiter Removal, so my monster’s Attack Points are doubled, too!” His Gatling Dragon’s Attack rises to 5200, and his Machina Gearframe’s becomes 3200 (although, the latter appears to hardly matter to him). “Gatling Dragon, attack him directly!”

A whirring noise emits from the Gatling Dragon as it peppers Sho square in the chest, sending him flying into the park bench as his Life Points drop right down to 0.

“Hey, that was overkill,” Sho grunts as he pries himself off of the bench. “You didn’t have to use Limiter Removal! Now you’re just showing off.”

“Yeah, but it was cooler that way.” Kenta walks over to Sho, holding out his hand. “Good match. Losing wasn’t so bad, right? We’re just having fun.”

“Yeah … good match.” As Sho takes his hand, he thinks to himself that Kenta didn’t just beat him because he was lucky -- he’s a pretty amazing duelist. A much better duelist than him, for certain.

Kenta is busy putting his Duel Disk away soon after, but stops and looks when he catches Sho staring at him. “You okay?”

“Uh…” Sho is still holding his deck, and he looks through it quickly before pulling a card out from it. “I changed my mind. I think you should have this.”

Kenta almost does a double take when he sees Sho holding out Power Bond in front of him, reaching out to take it as soon as he recognizes it. “Thank you. Wow, thanks so much, man!”

As Kenta puts the card in his pocket, Sho, if only for a brief moment, feels like he’s done something very wrong -- but only briefly. It’s better this way.

After all, Kenta will be able to use Power Bond much better than Sho ever did.


	4. June 2003

Sho’s consultation meeting ends up being on a Saturday afternoon when both of his parents are able to come in (as they both insisted on it). They barely talk to one another, and there’s a bit of an uncomfortable silence hanging in the air as the counselor gets the papers in order.

“Thank you for joining us today, Ms. Matsukata, Mr. Marufuji,” the counselor begins. “I’m going to go over your son’s choices for school, then compare that with his current grades and extracurriculars, and I’ll see if I can recommend any private schools as a safety net if needed.”

Sho winces at “private schools”. While there are high-ranked private schools like Duel Academia that one would be lucky to get into, the low-ranked private schools are for students who failed their public school entrance exams -- you know, so everyone can go to high school. Even the losers who couldn’t make it.

“Marufuji, you have your first choice listed as Tokuhara High School, correct?”

Sho nods.

“That is one of the best in the district -- not the most difficult entrance exam, but still fairly competitive. You’ll at least need above average grades to have a shot at it. Your second choice, you have Satsuma here -- that’s a solid average in the district, not too competitive, but I would expect decent grades for someone applying there. And last you put Musashito which is the, uh, lowest-ranked in the district, and I’d think anyone from this school could get in there without trouble. That all sound correct?”

“Yeah,” Sho affirms.

“Your son went over these choices with you?” The counselor looks to his parents.

“Well, we did,” Ms. Matsukata answers. “We didn’t check with his father.”

“I mean, fine by me,” Mr. Marufuji says. “But really -- Musashito? You don’t want to go there--”

“It’s his third choice, Kiyo.”

“Uh … so no changes to the list at this time?” The counselor asks.

There’s a bit of a long pause, before Sho’s mother answers: “No, not at this time.”

“O-kay. And I saw you didn’t put down any private schools you were interested in; you’re not thinking of applying to any?”

“What about Duel Academia?” Mr. Marufuji says, half-jokingly.

Sho tenses up, and his mother instinctively clasps a hand on his shoulder.

“Marufuji, are you interested in going to Duel Academia?”

Theoretically? Sho would love to go to Duel Academia. Now that he’s decided he likes dueling again, he can think of nothing more fun than going to a school where students are prepared to become champion Pro Duelists, and get to have fun all day dueling. Realistically? It would never happen, because he’s not good enough to get in. So what he says is:

“Um … maybe?”

His mother takes her hand off his shoulder, seeming a bit taken aback.

“Well, Duel Academia is a relatively new school,” the counselor explains. “Popular, too -- they get about five thousand applicants a year from Japan alone, and only about one hundred of them are accepted. Very, very competitive. On top of your extracurriculars and grades, you’ll need to interview, they’ll be looking at any sort of track record you have as a duelist, same with your immediate family -- I should’ve mentioned that first, actually. There’s quite a bit of emphasis on dueling skill and notoriety over grades, so I think you could have average grades, but if you’ve won a few Duel Monsters tournaments you’re still very likely to get in.”

“You used to do some tournaments, Sho,” his father points out. “And uh, his brother goes there, actually. Will that affect his chances of getting in?”

“It might.” The counselor pushes his glasses up his nose. “It’s not something schools readily admit, but it’s a possibility, yes.”

It just then hits Sho that, on the slim chance he’s accepted, he’ll have to go to the same high school as his brother. Almost reflexively, he clenches his hands into fists.

“I’ll add that to your school list, just in case,” the counselor says, scribbling down on his notesheet. “Now. Let’s talk about your extracurriculars … or lack thereof.”

Sho’s mother returns her hand to his shoulder.

“We don’t have any record of you doing any sports, competitive activities, or clubs at the middle school level,” he recounts, “Which doesn’t really matter as much as your grades, since you didn’t have any vocational schools listed initially, but Duel Academia might want to see some recent evidence of you participating in Duel Monsters tournament events. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sho repeats, feeling bile rise in his throat.

“Now, your grades…” The counselor’s expression turns grim as he turns around and shows to the family Sho’s midterm, a large red 77/100 written across the top. “Not much improvement from last year. Your son’s performance is average -- which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but as it is right now his GPA isn’t high enough for him to even be permitted to take the exam at Tokuhara.”

A sniff punctuates the air as tears begin welling up in Sho’s eyes, and Ms. Matsukata’s grip tightens on him like a vulture.

“Do you think if it’s higher at the end of the second trimester he’d be allowed?” She asks.

“Applications have to go out by the end of December,” the counselor explains. “We’ll give him until the end of September to get his grades up, but considering his track record in the past two years, it’s still a slim chance -- he’d have to be a top student for the rest of this trimester. For the time being, I’m going to suggest that your best choice is to aim for the Satsuma exam, and maybe you can check out a couple schools around the same ranking, okay? And I’m going to suggest a few private schools as a safety net, which you’ll receive information about in the mail.”

“Ah … thank you,” she replies.

The counselor peers over his desk and looks right into Sho’s puffy eyes. “If you really work hard, I do think you can get your grades up, Marufuji. Your teachers seem to think that you’re rather intelligent -- you just need to apply yourself more, okay?”

In a daze, Sho nods in agreement.

The counselor leans back in his chair. “Thanks so much for coming in. If you want, we’ll check back in with each other in the fall.”

Sho’s parents rise, bowing to the counselor before leaving as they drag Sho out the door with them.

“Do you want to go wash yourself in the bathroom, Sho?” His mother asks him gently.

Still sniffling, he nods before dashing into the restroom. He stands before the sink for about ten minutes, his heart pounding in his chest.

If his grades aren’t high enough for Tokuhara now, they won’t be high enough in the fall, either. And it’s not like he would even pass the entrance exam for Satsuma, either -- he’d just be going to a low-ranked school like a nobody. Like a failure. And getting into Duel Academia is laughable.

“Still in there?” Behind Sho, the door creaks open. “Your mother can’t come in, so she sent me to investigate.”

Sho hurriedly wipes the tears from his chin. “Sorry, Dad.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Mr. Marufuji approaches Sho, standing next to him in the mirror. “So why do you want to go to Tokuhara so bad? Satsuma isn’t so terrible, you know.”

As if Sho really needs to answer, but: “Well … nii-san already goes to a really good school, and um … um…”

“You don’t want to disappoint your mother,” he finishes. “Well, she’s not gonna skin you alive if you can’t go to Tokuhara, but … yeah, I get it. She’s vicious.”

Sho stays silent, not wanting to say anything bad about his mother.

“I don’t care if you go to the best school or wherever, Sho,” his father reassures him. “You’re still my little buddy.”

As much as he tries to force them back, a new wave of tears starts streaming down Sho’s face.

“And you know who else loves you? Your stepmom. She always wants to hear about how you’re doing … you should give her a call sometime, she really misses you. And your brother -- you know, the most emotionless teenager on the planet -- he never seems to like anyone else in the family, but he sure likes you, kid.”

He holds out his arms to give Sho a hug, which Sho tentatively accepts. 

“If you ever need anything, give us a call,” Mr. Marufuji whispers. “Just if you need to get out of the house or anything, okay?”

With his father’s coaxing, Sho manages to get himself out of the bathroom, and the rest is a blur as they part ways and his mother drives him home. She says something about getting him another tutor and he nods and does his best to listen until they make it to the driveway.

As they step into the house, Sho’s mother begins putting things away from the car and asks him to play what’s on the answering machine. After the first two messages, one in particular stands out to him:

“Ah, hello -- this message is for Sho Marufuji, um, this is Kenta Oshima’s mother. I just wanted to let you know that Kenta’s going to be in the hospital for a while, and was wondering if you’d like to visit him, so, give me a call back when you can…”

\--

Mrs. Oshima is in the lobby of the hospital where she said she’d be, and looks up from her paper as Sho arrives.

“Marufuji?

“Yeah,” Sho answers. “Are you Kenta’s mom?”

She nods and smiles. “Thank you so much for calling me back. Kenta told me about you and, you know, I just thought it would be nice for him to have a friend visit.”

“Did … uh, did something bad happen? Is he okay?”

“No, no, um…” She leans in a bit closer. “Kenta, he … back when he was in elementary school, he had a serious spine injury -- you’d hardly know it, he’s very well-adjusted -- but he’s been in and out of hospitals for surgery when he needs it. He’s going to be getting a rhizotomy this week, and I thought maybe you can help cheer him up a bit.”

“Oh … yeah, sure, I’d be happy to!”

Calling for the nurse’s assistance, she starts leading Sho and Mrs. Ojima down the hallway to Kenta’s room. Once they reach it, Sho looks to Mrs. Ojima, who’s still just standing there.

“Oh, go on in without me!” She twitters.

“Alright…” Sho turns the handle and opens the door, finding Kenta inside. The window outside is dark and stained with raindrops, contrasting the bright, fluorescent lights in the hospital room. Kenta snaps his head towards the door as Sho comes in, almost instantly putting his sandwich down on a tray of food just over his bed.

“Hey -- Marufuji? What are you doing here?”

“Your mom told me you were in the hospital,” Sho says. “She said I should come visit you.”

Kenta puffs out his cheeks. “Oh man, that’s embarrassing. Sorry about her.”

“No, it’s okay,” Sho insists. “I was worried about you.”

Kenta shrugs. “I do this like every few years. And I go to physical therapy like all the time anyways. You don’t have to get all sad about it.”

Sho’s been wearing a perpetually miserable expression since his meeting the day prior, but he decides against mentioning that. “Well, I’m glad you’re doing okay.”

“Yeah.” Kenta holds up one of the wrapped sandwiches from his lunch tray. “Want one?”

“No, it’s okay.”

Kenta puts the sandwich down on the tray, pausing for a long time. “Marufuji -- you’re like, my only friend. You know that, right?”

“Oh … really?”

“Yeah. I mean, you’re the only other guy at our school who plays Duel Monsters, so I guess it was meant to be. It’s like everybody stopped after elementary school or something. Or maybe our school just sucks.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Most of the students at their school were into sports or other games. Granted, Sho had met about a dozen other people at their school who did play Duel Monsters, but it was only recently that he’d decided on a whim to take an interest in it again himself.

“I, uh…” Kenta trails off a bit. “Every friend I’ve ever had, they just sort of leave eventually. Like, they move away. Or they just find better friends, I guess. Or maybe they hate that I only ever talk about Duel Monsters.” He laughs bitterly. “They were all awful, anyways.”

Sho glances briefly to the window before looking back towards Kenta, staying silent.

Kenta leans forward. “Did I ever tell you how I got into Duel Monsters?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Sho tells him.

“Have you heard of Katsuya Jounouchi?”

Sho’s face lights up. “Yeah, he’s one of my favorite Pro Duelists!”

Kenta grins. “I met his sister once. Right in this hospital.”

“What? You’re kidding!”

“Yeah, no one ever believes me when I tell ‘em,” Kenta sighs. “Um, so when I was like seven I kind of ran away from the nurse when I was supposed to get an x-ray, so I hid in her room. She was blind, I think, or she couldn’t see very well, and she was trying to watch Jounouchi’s duel on the computer. That was before they showed it live on video, I think, and there wasn’t any audio, so I had to give her a play-by-play. It was during Seto Kaiba’s Battle City tournament.”

“Wow,” Sho says. “Was it when he dueled, um, Marik Ishtar?”

“No, he dueled Marik in the finals,” Kenta corrects him. “It was when he dueled the bug guy. Insector Haga.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I was kind of hoping she’d get me Jonouchi’s autograph, but I never saw her again,” Kenta laments. “But he’s been my favorite duelist ever since. I spent a long time trying to make a replica of his Battle City deck, but now that it kind of sucks in this day and age, my deck’s sort of like a gambling one like his. But functional. You know, sort of a homage.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Sho agrees.

“How’d you get into Duel Monsters?”

Sho is taken aback, as he’d sort of forgotten that was the conversation topic. “Oh! Uh … well, my brother made me watch the KaibaCorp Grand Prix. Nothing too exciting.”

“Ugh. That was the worst tournament in history,” Kenta sighs. “Speaking of which, did you bring your deck? Mine’s on the table over there.”

“Oh -- yeah!” Sho digs his deck box out of his pocket. Though he feels a twinge of sadness for some reason he can’t put his finger on, he has a small sliver of hope that he might win this time.


	5. July 2003

Sho is dragged into his summer break kicking and screaming.

Very shortly after his meeting with the counselor, his mother had hired a tutor, and they meet together for three hours right after school in his home (so once Kenta is out of the hospital he can’t see him after school even if he wants to).

After his tutor leaves one evening in early July, he goes into his room to find that his television and console are no longer plugged into the wall in his room -- and his diorama is missing, too. He turns the house upside down looking for it until his mother finally comes home, and he almost angrily asks her where it is.

“I locked your toys in the basement,” she tells him, equally as snippy. “You need to be studying even after Mr. Hanazawa leaves, and I know all you do in your room is play games.”

“But I do study!” Sho insists. “Please, come on, you can’t do this to me! Please, Mom!”

“You’re too old for the Vehicroid toys -- come on, Sho, you’re not five anymore,” she counters. “You can have your things back when your exams are over. But you’re not going to slack off. Not if you want to take that exam.”

Sho felt like saying “what if I don’t want to take any exams”, but he kept his mouth shut after that, and when he went to his room to study that night he spent most of the time staring at the wall instead.

He’d loved the Vehicroid franchise since he was three, and spent hours watching every episode meticulously and begging his father to buy the corresponding toys. Although he wasn’t so interested in playing Duel Monsters at first, Ryou coaxed him into playing by telling him that, much like the Funny Bunny cartoons, Vehicroids had also been immortalized into the card game by Industrial Illusions.

And he is reminded a bit of that when Ryou comes home on the second day of summer break, hiding in the stairwell as he listens to his conversation with their mother on the way in.

“No, it’s all in the basement,” she says as she opens the door to the house.

“I’m surprised he still has those things,” Ryou comments.

“But I was hoping you could help your brother out a bit this summer,” his mother says. “Since he’ll be busy getting ready for exams, getting his grades up, doing his summer work.”

“What, tutor him? I thought you already hired one.”

“No, you don’t have to tutor him, necessarily,” she clarifies. “I just mean, you know, check in on him when Mr. Hanazawa isn't here, make sure he’s studying and he’s doing well, maybe review with him a bit and, you know, maybe if it seems like he’s doing well, why don’t you two duel?”

“He doesn’t like dueling anymore,” Ryou says.

“No, he uh, he likes it now,” she replies. “He and his friend have been -- well, he can tell you himself.” Her gaze is turned to Sho, who meekly comes down the stairs when he realizes he’s been spotted.

“Hey, Sho,” Ryou greets him, smiling awkwardly (he doesn’t smile very often).

“Uh … hi.” Sho halfheartedly smiles back, making them both uncomfortable.

“Bet you’re really excited for summer break.”

“Y...yeah.”

“Oh, before I forget,” their mother interrupts, “Your father and your stepmother wanted to have brunch with both of you tomorrow.”

Ryou looks away from Sho. “Just us, or are you coming?”

“Yeah, I’m … I’ll be there too.”

Ryou discreetly shoots a pained look at Sho, who returns it in kind.

\--

Sho is awoken the next morning around 9 a.m. by a knock on his door, followed by Ryou opening it without waiting for Sho to react.

“Get up,” Ryou calls to him. “We’re leaving in half an hour.”

Sho shoots up in bed. “Ah, I’m sorry!”

“Just be ready on time,” Ryou advises. “I don’t want to be the only one there sitting in the middle of Mom and Dad pretending not to hate each other.”

“Haha, yeah.” Sho doesn’t really like picking on their parents, but Ryou seems to consider it a bonding point for them. He has a particular disdain for their father, but only Sho is privy to that information.

After he brushes his teeth and gets dressed, Sho manages to get himself out the door just as his mother is pulling the car out of the garage.

The car ride is spent mostly in silence, with Ms. Matsukata occasionally asking Ryou about how things are at Duel Academia, how his professors are, and the like. Eventually they reach the midtown, and their mother spends a few minutes doing her best to parallel park before turning off the car and ushering them into the cafe.

Mr. Marufuji and his wife are already inside, and he looks almost cartoonishly jovial as he pulls both Ryou and Sho at once into a tight embrace. Mrs. Marufuji is a bit less overbearing, and hugs them both one at a time (although Sho appears to appreciate it more).

As they sit down at the table, their father wastes no time in spearheading the conversation and catching up with both of his sons, with his wife idly contributing and their mother remaining rather silent throughout the conversation.

“What’s Fujiwara doing over break?” Mr. Marufuji asks.

“He’s staying over at Fubuki’s,” Ryou explains.

“Ooh, sounds like they’re into each other,” Mr. Marufuji chuckles.

“It’s the only place he can really stay. He doesn’t have any parents to go back to,” Ryou states flatly.

“Oh.”

“Sho, how’s the tutoring going?” Their stepmother asks a bit too cheerily.

“Uh, it’s good,” Sho answers. “He says I’m really getting it!”

“That’s great!” His father rebounds. “Still going for the exam at Tokuhara?”

“Yeah, maybe … I mean, they uh, they said I don’t have much of a chance of getting my grades up, so I don’t know…”

“You’ll do it, Sho,” Ms. Matsukata interjects.

“Yeah, and even if it’s not enough for Tokuhara, all that studying will guarantee you a spot at Satsuma,” Mr. Marufuji adds. “Not to mention, it’ll help you get into Duel Academia.”

Both Sho and Ryou freeze up at the same time, but Ryou is the first to speak. “He’s applying to Duel Academia?”

Nervously, Sho looks up at Ryou’s face to gauge his reaction, but -- as always -- he’s impassive.

“My idea,” Mr. Marufuji clarifies, “But I think he’s got a pretty good chance at it. Remember when he won first place twice at that Junior Division tournament in elementary school?”

“One of the times it was only second place,” Sho corrects him.

“Yeah, but they’re gonna be looking at that,” his father contends. “That, plus you nailing the interview and the entrance exam, on top of being the Kaiser Ryou’s little brother, they’re gonna be begging for you to come to their school. Don’t you think so, Kaiser?”

“You’ve got to be a really good duelist if you want to make it there,” Ryou responds. “I thought you quit dueling, Sho.”

All the attention focused on Sho is making him anxious. “I, uh … I decided I like it again.”

“Just ‘liking it’ isn’t good enough for Duel Academia,” Ryou says. “You’d better be sure you’re a good duelist before you even send out an application form.”

“Okay, that’s enough, Ryou,” Mr. Marufuji halts him. “You’re stressing this kid out.”

“You asked me what I--”

“Ryou.” His father gives him a stern look. “Enough.”

Ryou falls silent, giving Sho a beleaguered glance that he returns sympathetically, despite being internally grateful to his father for stepping in.

The rest of the brunch is rather uneventful, in Sho’s opinion, and as they step out of the restaurant and begin exchanging goodbyes, Sho’s father pulls him aside out of earshot.

“Hey, Sho. Mom’s working you down to the bone, huh?”

He nods.

“I’m so proud of you. You work so hard and you’re such a sweet kid -- don’t turn out to be a huge asshole like your Mom and your brother, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

“Oh -- and I got you a little something.” Mr. Marufuji takes from his pocket a Duel Monsters card in a protective sleeve. “Enjoy.”

In the car ride back, Sho takes it out when he thinks Ryou isn’t looking and finds it’s a common Waboku card.

When they get back to the house, Sho spends the next several hours reviewing mathematics with his tutor, finding after he leaves that Ryou and his mother have gone out to get groceries. Absentmindedly, he wanders the house, not wanting to study, going through the ajar door to his brother’s room.

It doesn’t look much different from how he left it when he went off to Duel Academy. Aside from the untouched Pro Duelist posters on the wall, shelf overflowing with gleaming trophies, and neatly-arranged dragon figurines, his mother’s care in meticulously cleaning Ryou’s room has already been ruined, his bed and clothing drawer a bit of a mess. Aside from that, the only other difference is Ryou’s suitcase lying open on the floor, assorted clothes and keepsakes spilling from it.

Peering closer, Sho sees Ryou’s Duel Disk and a stray copy of Cyber Repair Plant lying on top of the loose clothes next to a photograph evidently taken at Duel Academia. Within the picture are three students in pristine white uniforms, each smiling and cheerful.

Sho notices with a start that the student on the right is Ryou -- he almost didn’t recognize him, as his expression in the picture seems so genuine and blissful.


	6. August 2003

At their mother’s insistence, Ryou monitors Sho’s studying while neither she nor Mr. Hanazawa the tutor are home, stepping in to help him on occasion, mainly out of his own boredom. In the evenings when Ms. Matsukata finally arrives home, they are often circled around the living room television, Sho pretending to be engrossed in his practice exam packet while next to him Ryou watches the live Pro Duels intently.

Sho had managed to finish his assigned summer work for school within the first week of break, actually, and spends most of his time reviewing and re-reviewing the study material left with him by his tutor. He finds himself excelling at history the most, but struggles quite a bit with mathematics. Ryou, luckily, seems to have more of a head for it than him, and will spend up to twenty minutes at a time explaining how to solve the problem, as much as he clearly doesn’t enjoy it.

On one such afternoon, when the window is open and the weather outside is pleasantly warm and not too hot, Ryou finds himself once again having to explain another formula.

“I would’ve thought they’d be teaching you this in Physics,” Ryou says tiredly. “But, uh, you know what the ‘delta’ symbol is for, right?”

“...Distance?”

“Change … change in time. Velocity equals--”

“Velocity equals distance over change in time?”

“Yeah,” Ryou affirms. “So, in this problem they’re asking you to find the distance. So the velocity is 34.6 meters per second, so you just need to know how many seconds it is, pretty much.”

Sho squints at the paper. “It doesn’t tell me how many seconds.”

“Well, there are other variables, right?” Ryou also looks closer at the paper. “Okay, so this is…”

Ryou stares at the problem for a solid minute, then groans and leans back in his seat. “Alright. Let’s duel.”

“...What? Right now?”

“Mom wanted us to at some point this summer,” Ryou explains. “And you’re applying to Duel Academia, right? Let’s see if you’re good enough.”

Sho suddenly feels wobbly. Not once has he ever beat Ryou before in a duel -- if he can’t now, is he not good enough?

“Why don’t you get your deck and your Duel Disk,” Ryou suggests, “And I’ll meet you outside.”

“Uh … right.” Still jittery, Sho scrambles up the stairs and retrieves everything from his room, deliberately taking a bit of a long time to do so. Just before he heads down, he switches out one of his cards for the Waboku that his father gave him.

Ryou is waiting for him outside as he said he would, his arms crossed as he leans against the side of the house. “You ready?”

Sho is not ready, not really. He already knows he’s not good enough for Duel Academia, and he never will be, but -- at least if he hears it from Ryou, he’ll know for sure.

“Um … yeah. Let’s duel, nii-san!”

They take position across from each other as the Duel Disk display starts up.

“You go first, Sho.”

“Oh … okay.” Still shaking, Sho draws a card. “I summon Steamroid in Attack Position!”

Diminutive in size, Sho’s monster appears on the field, displaying 1800 Attack and Defense Points. “I set one card face down and end my turn.”

“My move,” Ryou says. “When you control a monster, I’m allowed to summon Cyber Dragon directly from my hand.” Cyber Dragon, with 2100 Attack Points and 1600 Defense Points, towers over Steamroid.

“Cyber Dragon, attack his Steamroid!” Ryou’s monster destroys Sho’s, taking his Life Points down to 3700. “And I’m going to set a card face down. That ends my turn.”

“I draw.” Sho is hoping that his next card will help him turn the tides -- aside from his one Monster, Ryou is defenseless, after all -- but he has nothing that will help him defeat Cyber Dragon. All he can do right now is defend himself, but…

“I activate Polymerization,” Sho says tentatively, holding the card up. “I’m fusing together my two Cycroids to summon Pair Cycroid!”

The bicycle-shaped Pair Cycroid appears on the field with only 1600 Attack Points and 1200 Defense Points. “Next, I activate Monster Reborn, so my Steamroid’s coming back to my side of the field in Defense Position! Plus, I’m setting a Monster face down.”

“You left your Pair Cycroid wide open in Attack Position,” Ryou notes.

“That’s okay -- because it can attack you directly!” Pair Cycroid hurtles towards Ryou, taking a chunk out of his Life Points and bringing him down to 2400. “That’s it for my turn.”

“Well, that was a big mistake,” Ryou laments as he draws a card. “I summon Cyber Dragon Drei to the field, where its name becomes Cyber Dragon. Next, I activate Power Bond. I’m fusing together my two Cyber Dragons on the field and the one in my hand to summon Cyber End Dragon!”

The enormous silhouette of the three-headed Cyber End Dragon nearly blocks out the sun, and as he looks upon it, Sho feels a strange bit of hope as he sees the display boast 8000 Attack Points.

Ryou used Power Bond, doubling Cyber End Dragon’s Attack from 4000 to 8000. If his attack goes through against Pair Cycroid, the duel is over for Sho -- but if it doesn’t, then Ryou will take 4000 damage at the end of the turn and lose himself.

“Cyber End Dragon, attack Pair Cycroid--”

“Not so fast!” Sho interrupts him. “I activate my Trap Card, Waboku! Not only do I not take damage from your Monsters this turn, but you can’t destroy any of mine, either!”

“Oh,” Ryou says. “Then I activate my Counter-Trap, Trap Jammer. It negates the effect of your Waboku.”

With a great blast from its maw, Cyber End Dragon obliterates Pair Cycroid, bringing Sho’s Life Points down to 0.

As the holograms deactivate, Sho merely stands there, looking at Ryou, waiting for him to say something. He isn’t sure why, but he feels as though he’s about to cry.

Without a word, Ryou shakes his head, walking towards the door into the house.

Funny enough, that was all Sho needed to see to understand what he thought.

\--

Sho avoids Ryou as much as he can for the rest of the break, keeping his studies between himself and his tutor. Ryou doesn’t seem to mind, and over time he and their mother become more lax about monitoring Sho’s study habits. 

During the last week of break, in fact, Sho’s mother sends him out on an errand to buy sundries from the store a few miles away so he’ll get some exercise.

Sho has been carrying the bags for about half a block when his arms start to feel heavy, and he stops at a bench and decides to rest for a few minutes. Once he begins catching his breath, Sho realizes he’s next to the park where he would spend his afternoons with Kenta.

“Sho? Hey, Sho!”

Sho whips his head around, looking for the source of the voice, and is taken by surprise when he sees Hitomi walking towards him.

“Hitomi! Hi!”

“What’s up!” As she approaches, Hitomi sits down next to him. “I haven’t seen you since before break!”

“I … also haven’t seen you since before break!” Sho replies. “Um, what are you up to today?”

“Just taking a walk,” Hitomi shrugs. “You?”

“Had to buy some stuff for my mom,” Sho answers.

“Oh, I see. You do anything cool this summer?”

“Uh, not really,” Sho responds. “Just a lot of studying for exams and school and stuff.”

Hitomi sucks in her breath. “Oof. Well, at least you’re super prepared for the exams now, right?”

“Yeah, I … guess so,” Sho agrees. “Did you do anything cool?”

“Oh, we just went to see my family in Okinawa, nothing big,” Hitomi tells him.

“Okinawa? That’s pretty far, did you, uh--”

“Yeah, we took a plane,” she laughs. “Oh, I just realized, do you need to get home? Sorry, I’m distracting you--”

“No, no, no, don’t worry!” Sho interrupts. “I have plenty of time, actually, it’s not a big deal, I hope I’m not distracting you!”

“Nah, I mean, I was just thinking about getting ice cream,” she says, indicating the ice cream parlor across the street from them. “Want me to buy you one?”

“Oh, I can pay for it!” Sho responds.

\--

Despite his claims, Hitomi insists at the register to pay for both of them, and she offers to carry a couple of his bags for him as they walk together.

“You sure you don’t mind?” Sho asks, trying to keep his cone from dripping.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” she shoots back. “My house is in this direction anyways.”

“Oh, alright.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get your bags back,” she laughs.

“Haha, I hope so!” Sho replies. “Umm, so school starts up again next Monday, right?”

“Yeah. Second trimester’s the most important! I gotta get my grades up. But that should be no problem for you, since you spent all summer studying.”

“Yeah,” Sho agrees. “So you’re still planning to apply to Yonezato, right?”

Hitomi groans. “I basically don’t have a choice. Which sucks, because my boyfriend’s at Tokuhara … he’s a first year, don’t worry, it’s not super weird.”

“You have -- you have a boyfriend?” Sho splutters.

“Um, yeah. Hojo. He went to our school last year, and--” She stops when she meets Sho’s gaze, suddenly appearing to be uncomfortable. “...Yeah.”

Sho’s face flushes. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s fine.”

Regardless, they spend the rest of the walk in silence, tossing their napkins and spoons in a waste bin along the way, and are just a few blocks away from Sho’s house when Hitomi suddenly returns Sho’s bags to his hands.

“Well, thanks for walking with me,” Hitomi thanks him. “My house is up over there, so um, see you in school Monday!”

“Yeah, see you…” Sho trails off as Hitomi dashes away, waving goodbye to him without looking back, soon becoming impossible to make out in the shadows cast by the sunset.

Although his arms are starting to feel heavy again, Sho keeps walking until he’s almost turned the block when he notices someone familiar leaning against the building near its end, nearly causing him to drop his bags in surprise.

“Kenta?!”

“Hey, Marufuji. Been a while.” Although Kenta doesn’t always sound the most cheerful when he greets Sho, there’s a certain edge to his voice this time.

“Um, uh, were you -- were you following me?” Sho is feeling strangely panicked, particularly at Kenta’s demeanor.

“I mean, I just happened to see you walking around with your girlfriend,” Kenta explains, peeling himself off the railing. “First time I’ve even seen you since I was in the hospital.”

“Yeah, we just sort of ran into each other,” Sho answers nervously, “And, uh, but she’s not my girlfriend, we’re, um, and--”

“And you have better friends than me now?”

“What?! No!” Sho retorts. “I’ve been busy studying, okay?! I spent every single day studying and, and I didn’t have time to see you!”

“Yeah, so you couldn’t call me and tell me that, either?”

“Shut up!” Sho can feel something snap within him, suddenly -- it’s as though all his resentment against his school and his family and the entrance exams is tumbling out of him at once. “It’s not like you called me, either! I WAS BUSY!”

“Busy right after you saw me in the hospital,” Kenta retorts. “Everyone does this to me, you know? Every friend I’ve ever made, they get sick of me and leave. Should’ve known this would happen.”

“Well -- well maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with that!” Sho counters. “Maybe they all left you because you’re -- you’re a selfish jerk! Maybe that’s why!”

“And maybe you don’t have any friends because you play with toys like a three year-old, and you act like a three year-old, and you’re a shitty duelist!”

“I’m not a shitty duelist,” Sho blurts out without thinking, despite his belief to the contrary.

Kenta takes this as an invitation to continue. “Yeahhh, you’re a shitty duelist. All you do is play Vehicroids like a baby. Ever thought about why you never win? That’s why. Because you--”

“SHUT UP!” Dropping his bags, Sho lunges at Kenta, but barely even manages to unbalance him. 

Kenta, much taller and stronger than him, pushes Sho to the ground in a swift motion and kicks him hard in the face. He can feel warm blood trickling down from his nose, and he sees Kenta step back with a look of uncertainty on his face, but neither of them have time to react before--

“Sho!” Footsteps thunder across the pavement, rounding the corner to their location. Kenta backs away further, trying to run, but his arm is grabbed tightly by Ryou.

“What the hell did you do to my brother?!” Ryou shouts in his face. “Huh?”

Sho has never seen Ryou look so angry before, and it scares him so much that for a moment he forgets all of his frustration with Kenta. In fact, he’s a little scared on Kenta’s behalf.

“Let -- let go of me!” Kenta urges him, panicked.

“What the fuck did you do?!”

“Let go of me, you piece of shit--!”

Ryou shoves him hard to the ground, and as soon as Kenta is free he scrambles off the ground and starts dashing the other way down the block. Wasting no time, Ryou grabs Sho’s arm roughly and picks him up, getting him up onto his back.

“Nii-san--”

“Let’s get you home, Sho,” Ryou says quietly. 

Picking Sho’s bags up from the ground, Ryou carries him the rest of the way home, announcing their return to their mother on the way in as he gets Sho off his back. She rushes to Sho’s side as soon as she sees he’s injured, washing the blood and dirt off and pressing ice against the raw parts of his face. When she realizes how tired Sho appears to be, she orders him upstairs to bed.

Not that Sho can complain, as he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

\--

“Wake up, Sho.”

When he comes to the next morning, Sho discovers Ryou sitting at his bedside.

“Nii-san..?”

“Feeling better?”

Sho touches his face gingerly -- it doesn’t hurt as much as yesterday, but he feels just a dull ache from his bruises. “Yeah. Thank you.”

“Okay -- just so you know, yesterday shouldn’t have even happened,” Ryou admonishes. “Mom wanted you to go to the store and come right home, you know. When you didn’t come back after three hours she was worried sick, and she sent me out to look -- and thank God I found you when I did. So don’t scare her like that again, Sho. When you came back all bloody like that, you gave her a heart attack. And she yelled at me. I should’ve gone out looking for you sooner, it was my fault -- you know that’s bullshit, right?”

“I’m … I’m sorry,” Sho says, nearly sobbing.

“You know I’m just looking out for you, Sho,” Ryou says, “But you know how crazy Mom is. It’s not you, obviously, but she kind of puts everything on me. If you mess up, it’s my fault somehow. So I don’t want to put you in a situation where you’re going to mess up, but you have to stop putting yourself in those situations, too, okay?”

“Okay. I’m sorry, nii-san. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s…” Ryou stops himself. “What were you doing yesterday, anyway?”

Sho sniffs loudly. “Um … I was with my friends.”

“What were you and your friends doing?”

“Getting ice cream…”

“Okay. And that guy who hit you, has he been picking on you for a while?”

“That was Kenta,” Sho answers. “He’s my best friend.”

Ryou grimaces at Sho. “Your best friend.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not your friend, Sho,” Ryou says. “At least, he’s not a good friend for you. I don’t like him.”

“He’s not always like that…”

“Yeah? Look,” Ryou states, “You’re my little brother, and I worry about you. I don’t want you to be in a situation where you’re miserable, and I think this guy Kenta is making you miserable. Your self-esteem can’t be that low. I know you act -- you act all anxious and timid around me and Mom and Dad, but I’ve seen how you act around your friends and your classmates, you’re like a different person. If you can be confident around them, you should be more confident around your family. At least for Mom.”

Sho says nothing, still crying quietly, so Ryou ruffles his hair and gets up from the bed, heading towards the door.

“...Nii-san?”

Ryou stops and turns in the doorframe. “What.”

“Um … do you think Vehicroid cards are bad?”

“No bad cards, just bad duelists,” Ryou says, closing the door behind him.

Sho has never felt more miserable.


	7. September 2003

The next Monday after summer vacation ends, when Sho goes to his homeroom class that morning he discovers Hitomi is now sitting closer to the front next to another girl in the class, so deeply engrossed in conversation with her that she doesn’t even notice Sho walking in. He sits alone at the back of the class in his usual seat, staring at the empty desk next to him dejectedly.

The first few weeks of the month go by at a monotonous pace. Sho continues his lessons with his tutor and spends the rest of the night doing homework, and now his mother at least allows him to watch television when he’s done with everything. The air of the house feels a bit different with Ryou away at school again, but Sho at least senses a bit of weight off of his shoulders.

At his last check-in with the counselor, Sho and his parents learn that their son has been doing very well this trimester -- the best he’s ever done, in fact -- but, at this rate, it’s still not quite enough to bump up his GPA to the level that he’d need to be eligible for the Tokuhara exam.

With a placid smile, the counselor tells Sho that he’s proud of his progress, and that he thinks he’ll do well, very well, on the Satsuma exam.

Sho isn’t quite sure how he feels about that on the drive home, but when he glances at his mother’s face and sees her pointedly frowning, he feels a deep, crushing shame.

\--

Sho’s birthday the next day goes the same as any other would -- he’s a bit old for a birthday celebration, after all -- so it comes as a surprise to him when he gets home that afternoon and, after his session with Mr. Hanazawa is over, his father and stepmother come to the door.

“Happy birthday, Sho,” Mr. Marufuji grins, wrapping Sho tightly in a hug. “Get your shoes on -- we’re taking you out to eat.”

“Oh … did you want to wait for Mom to come home?”

“We called ahead of time,” his father explains. “She said she’s gotta work overtime tonight, so we’ll be fine getting you home after.”

Sho thinks he should cheer up a little, considering that his father and stepmother went to all this trouble for him on his birthday, but during the car ride there and the dinner he finds himself mulling over his meeting with the counselor, still. Perhaps his mother isn’t working overtime -- maybe she just couldn’t bear to see him tonight.

He idly answers questions and chats with the other two, and halfway through the meal Mrs. Marufuji takes out a rather large gift box from her bag.

“We pitched in and got something for you,” she informs him excitedly.

“Oh … wow!” Sho forces himself to snap out of his thoughts, unwrapping it immediately and opening the lid to discover a brand new Duel Disk inside.

“It’s the newest model,” his stepmother says. “I know you’ve had your old one for almost seven years now, so this one should work a little faster.”

“Yeah, and you can bring it with you to Duel Academia,” Mr. Marufuji grins.

“But … but I’m not going to Duel Academia.”

The table falls silent for a bit, broken by Sho’s father eventually speaking up. “You … changed your mind about dueling? I can return it, if you don’t like it...”

Sho suddenly realizes how ungrateful he sounds. “I’m sorry, I -- I really do like it, and I’m really glad you got it for me, but … I’m not good enough to get into Duel Academia. So I’m not gonna apply.”

“Sho.” His father puts his hand on his arm. “Who told you that you weren’t good enough?”

“Nii-san. And Kenta. And--” --With embarrassment, Sho realizes he’s choking up again-- “--And I haven’t even won a single duel since I started dueling again, so…”

“Hey. Hey, your life doesn’t revolve around Ryou,” Mr. Marufuji tells him. “He doesn’t control how you feel. Do you wish you could go to Duel Academia?”

“Yeah, but--”

“So apply there! It doesn’t matter if Ryou or whatever nobody says you don’t have what it takes, you take the test for yourself, just to say you did. Ryou doesn’t even have to know that you took it, alright? I can get your Mom to keep her mouth shut, don’t worry.”

Mrs. Marufuji goes over to sit next to Sho, putting her arms around his shoulders. After some hesitation, he hugs her back.

\--

It’s been months since Sho met up with Kenta at their spot in the park, so it comes as a surprise to him the next week when he finds Kenta waiting for him right outside the school gate. Sho tries to avoid meeting his gaze, but Kenta has already caught sight of him.

“Marufuji--”

Sho keeps walking, not looking back, trying to shake Kenta off. When he’s almost a block away from the school, however, Kenta unexpectedly grabs him by the forearm.

“What are you doing--!”

“I just want to talk,” Kenta pleads. “Can I talk to you?”

Sho narrows his eyes. “You’re not gonna kick me again?”

“No, I just wanted to -- I wanted to ask why,” Kenta says. “Why we stopped hanging out. The real reason.”

“I…” Sho takes a deep breath. “My mom hired me a tutor, and I have to meet with him every day after school. I don’t have time anymore. And I … I didn’t tell you because I was worried about disappointing you.”

Kenta blinks. “That’s really it?”

Sho nods.

“Why were you scared of disappointing me? We’re friends.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Man.” Kenta leans against the fence. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“And, uh … I’m sorry I called you a jerk,” Sho confesses. “I didn’t mean it.”

Kenta smiles a bit. “Hey, um … I said some things I didn’t mean, too. I … yeah, we both messed up a little. It’s just … I spent the whole summer alone, you know?”

“I … I didn’t know.”

“But you--” Kenta stops himself. “Um … hey. Even if it’s not the same anymore, maybe we can duel sometime soon. You think so?”

“Um … yeah!”

Kenta straightens himself out. “Actually, uh, do you want to go to the hobby shop with me right now? They’re releasing the new booster pack today--”

“Oh, no,” Sho exclaims. “Oh, I just realized I’m late for my tutoring session. I’m sorry, Kenta, I get out at 7 p.m., but I really gotta go now.”

Kenta winces, then sighs deeply. “Yeah, I’ll … see you later, Marufuji.”

Without looking back, Sho sprints towards his house as fast as he can.


	8. October 2003

Kenta and Sho’s relationship almost returns to normal over the next month, with Sho eventually giving Kenta his home phone number, and they now spend an hour or two each night talking about Duel Monsters until Sho’s mother scolds him to hang up and go back to his homework. 

They start spending time in person on the weekends around their usual hangout spots in town, but rather than dueling each other they more often find themselves watching Pro Duel Circuit reruns on the television in the hobby shop. To Kenta’s surprise, they at one point see a special on the channel regarding Duel Academia, where “Kaiser” Ryou is featured heavily in a promotional duel that takes place yearly against one of their sister schools. Kenta confesses that when Sho had mentioned that his brother went there, he thought he was making it up.

On one of these weekends, something is very different about the hobby shop, and when Kenta notices, his jaw practically drops to the floor.

The notice board at the entrance often pins up flyers for small local tournaments, sales, and upcoming merchandise to pre-order, but today much of it is dominated by a poster which, at the top, reads “Battle City Expo”. The poster features several notable duelists, a couple of which Sho recognizes as Katsuya Jonouchi and Marik Ishtar.

Kenta is doing what Sho would best describe as short-circuiting. “I … no way … no way..!”

“Jonouchi … he’s going to be in another tournament?” Sho asks.

Kenta shakes his head, pointing to the description blurb at the bottom.

As part of KaibaCorp’s 50th anniversary, we are proud to commemorate the company’s first sponsored Duel Monsters tournament, Battle City, in 1997. At this event in Domino City’s Kaiba Land on Sunday, November 16th, from 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., fans will have the opportunity to meet and view a panel including Battle City finalists Ryou Bakura, Marik Ishtar, Rishid Ishtar, Katsuya Jonouchi, and Mai Kujaku. Tickets will be ¥8,000 at the door, ordered at the postal address below, or ordered online at kaibacorp.co.jp/battlecityexpo/. Ticket sale is limited and non-refundable.

“We -- Marufuji, we need to go to this thing,” Kenta insists. “I’m finally gonna meet Jonouchi in person!”

“Woah,” Sho exclaims, his eyes shining. “Yeah, we gotta!”

“This is gonna be awesome,” Kenta giggles. “I’m gonna get him to autograph my Time Wizard!”

“Oh, I still have my Baby Dragon card!” Sho announces. “I mean, it would be cooler if I had a Red-Eyes, but I’ve never gotten one once.”

“Yeah, they’re impossible to find,” Kenta groans. “But we better get our tickets as fast as possible! Does your house have a computer?”

“Yeah!”

Sho and Kenta dash over to his house almost immediately, begging Ms. Matsukata to get the (rather expensive) tickets for both of them, managing to convince her when Sho points out how diligently he’s been studying and completing his homework recently. Sho is allowed to go on the condition that he bring something back for his brother’s holiday present, and that he continue to keep his grades up.


	9. November 2003

In preparation for the Expo, Kenta drags Sho over to his house and forces him to watch the original broadcast footage of Battle City, having something akin to an explosive reaction when he learns that Sho has never watched it in its entirety.

Sho has trouble keeping attention with many of the early duels, as they are only displayed in a data readout rather than live in video, but Kenta is more than happy to narrate, excitedly pointing out the duel between Katsuya Jonouchi and Insector Haga and how he was right in the hospital with Jonouchi’s sister right at that moment. Sho is most intrigued by the fascinating narrative woven around the tournament, in which Seto Kaiba threw the tournament to lure in the leader of a strange cult known as the Ghouls, their leader stopping at nothing to obtain the legendary Egyptian God Cards. Kenta makes a point of complaining about the many people who think the story was made up to dramatize the tournament, and Sho can’t help but agree -- it seems too good to not be true.

As the big day arrives, they make plans to take the train into Domino City very early in the morning, being the first to line up at the Kaiba Land park entrance and -- hopefully -- the first to get to the event location in the Kaiba Dome. Sho has been to the park a couple of times before with Ryou and their father, so he reassures Kenta that he’ll know how to get them there as quickly as possible. Kenta also convinces Sho that they need to bring their Duel Disks and decks on the errant possibility that they’ll get to duel Jonouchi.

When they do arrive at the park at 6:30 a.m., however, they’re dismayed to see that there’s already a line of about twenty people trailing from the entrance -- they’re lucky to enter it when they do, however, for as the day progresses, the line only increases until it wraps around the nearby streets twice over. Waiting for so many hours is monotonous, but when the clock at last chimes nine, the park employees start letting the visitors in one by one. As soon as their tickets are verified, they dash as fast as they can for the Kaiba Dome, Sho being considerate of Kenta not being able to run as fast due to the bracer on his leg.

Luckily, they’re one of the first eight or so people to make it to the arena, and once their passes for the event are approved, they make their way inside to see that the stadium is completely transformed from what they’ve seen on television. While the main dueling stage is cleanly roped off, the ground surrounding it has been segmented into several different fields and booths, each with a covered sign in front of it. Kenta drags Sho to stand in a roped-off line leading out from the booth closest to the dueling stage, reasoning this to be the most likely line to stand in to meet Jonouchi (he was said to be hosting on the website, after all). As other visitors come into the Kaiba Dome, some go to sit on the bleachers, while most others follow Kenta’s lead and line up at some of the booths, not knowing to what they are assigned.

Kenta seems quite certain of his hunch, as more and more people funnel into the stadium, but a half hour later the park attendants arrive within and remove the sign covering, revealing that Kenta and Sho are standing at the front of the line to meet Ryou Bakura instead. They seem ready to berate the park goers for stepping in the roped-off lines so early, but appear to decide against it.

Kenta panics, looking around at the increasing number of people filling the field. “Crap. We gotta get out of this line, quick.”

“Well … that’s okay,” Sho says. “The other lines might be too long now, so at least we’ll--”

“I mean if you wanna stay in this one, that’s fine,” Kenta replies, stretching a leg over the other end of the rope, “But I’m gonna go get in line for Jonouchi.”

“Oh--! Wait!” Sho cries, rummaging in his backpack.

“You coming?”

“Oh … I just wanted you to take this for me,” he says sheepishly, holding out his Baby Dragon card. “So he can sign it.”

As Kenta dashes off to go find the line for Jonouchi, Sho feels as though he made the right call, seeing as right afterwards the attendants officially close the line far behind him for Bakura and send away visitors attempting to join it, telling them to come back later if there is still time at the end. Gradually, many of them start to fill the stands instead, and as hard as Sho looks he can’t find where Kenta’s disappeared to in the crowd.

At a quarter of, Sho feels he has to cover his ears as the stadium suddenly erupts into a wave of applause -- though he can’t see what’s going on at the stadium entrance, enormous televisions along the stadium’s side show closeups of the Battle City finalists entering the stadium, grinning and waving to the visitors, being escorted by guards in firmly-pressed suits. With a jolt, Sho realizes that he’s in the very same stadium as a group of Duel Monsters legends.

They all certainly look older than he saw from the Battle City footage and the posters -- Mai Kujaku and Rishid Ishtar are evidently in their thirties now, and he almost doesn’t recognize Marik Ishtar with his hair cut much shorter. Jonouchi, however, bears the same goofy grin that Sho would recognize anywhere.

The duelists are brought up onto the main dueling stage and seated in chairs around it, with most of the visitors watching eagerly as the duelists sit and talk amongst themselves too quietly to be heard. When it is at last ten o’ clock, one of the men in suits comes up onto the stage and hands a microphone to Jonouchi, who stands up at the center of the platform.

“Hey, everyone!” Jonouchi shouts into the microphone, causing it to screech throughout the stadium (to the chagrin of the people listening). Embarrassed, he covers it, making sure it’s silent before continuing. “Haha, uh, sorry about that, folks. Thanks to all of you for coming out here today. Now, I know some of you guys are probably disappointed that there’s only about half the finalists from Battle City here today, right?”

There are some mumblings from the audience.

“Yeah, well, rich boy is too busy with his job now, sounds like,” Jonouchi explains. “Oh, how times have changed. Guess he finally figured out how to actually run a company. Yugi’s overseas in New York right now -- I know, he calls me every day -- and, uh, Rishid, what’s Ishizu up to right now?”

Jonouchi shoves the microphone in Rishid’s face.

“She is at her job.”

“She is at her job!” Jonouchi repeats. 

Rishid nods.

“Well, yeah, that’s why the other three couldn’t make it, but, we’re going to get started here,” Jonouchi continues. “We’re gonna introduce everybody first, then you guys get to listen to me talk for half an hour straight, and we’re gonna open up for a Q&A after, um … at noon we’re gonna head out to the field and you guys can say hi to everybody, but we’re gonna close up around 5:15 and, uh, we’re having a surprise duel at the end, guess it’s not really a surprise anymore since I said it, but you can probably check the schedule printout if you got a copy of it. And uh … yeah! I’ll start us off, uh … I’m Katsuya Jonouchi, in case you didn’t know; I’ve been a Pro Duelist for five years now, and Seto Kaiba let me host this thing for some reason since Marik didn’t wanna do it! Glad to be here today.”

Sho is straining to see over the sign, so he turns himself around to look at the broadcast on the television, just as Jonouchi passes the microphone to the person seated on the far left.

“Hello, everyone, uh, I’m Ryou Bakura,” he introduces himself. “I just finished college a few years ago with a degree in archaeology. I actually spent the past year in Egypt, which was pretty nice. Uh … yeah.” He passes the microphone over to Marik next to him.

“I’m Marik Ishtar,” says Marik. “You probably remember me as the runner-up in Battle City -- my hair isn’t that crazy anymore -- um, I work for a historical society, we work with preserving Egyptian artifacts, and I haven’t dueled in years. Happy to see all of you.”

The microphone is passed to Rishid. “I’m Rishid. I work with the same historical society, and I also have not dueled in years.”

“Well, now I’m embarrassed,” Mai chuckles as she takes the microphone. “I’m Mai Kujaku, and apparently I’m the only other person on this stage who still plays Duel Monsters. For the record, I’ve been a Pro Duelist for six years, and I’m ranked higher in the League than Jonouchi.”

“Well, you didn’t have to snipe me like that, Mai,” Jonouchi whines as he takes the microphone back from her, prompting some laughter from the audience. “But yeah, she’s right. If you can get tickets next Saturday, she’s dueling DD right here in the Kaiba Dome; I’ll be there!”

After the applause dies down, Jonouchi continues. “Yeah, so, I know some of you already weren’t even alive back then, but uh, in 1990, I think, this guy Pegasus Crawford invents Duel Monsters, that’s like almost fifteen years ago already, and within two years it becomes the #1 bestselling card game in history, it’s crazy. They got tournaments springing up all over the world, a Pro League (which I am in), and you can’t find a nerd kid in middle school who doesn’t play it. So you think in middle school I’d be all over this game, right?”

Jonouchi pauses as there are some murmurs of assent from the crowd.

“Nope! I was like fifteen and I never even picked up a video game,” Jonouchi laughs. “Nah, when I was in middle school I was in a gang. I was a pretty bad kid. I never studied, I skipped class, I poured coffee in my teacher’s shoes, and you know what? My dad didn’t even care. But after a while I got really sick of it. I got sick of being around people who treated me like shit, and, uh, I kinda decided they were holding me back. I didn’t want to go to the same shitty high school as them, but I was like, where else am I gonna go? Because my grades were terrible, folks, but I kinda picked my ass up for my last year of middle school, and you know, I got into this school that was pretty okay. It wasn’t some big shot high school or anything, but yeah, it wasn’t bad. But, you know, I wasn’t really happy with myself. I was kind of a huge jerk, actually, but next year, when I got to high school, I met someone really special. Someone who turned my whole life around. That was the year I met Yugi Muto.”

There are some cheers from the audience, which Jonouchi is quick to interrupt. “Yeah, you all know him as the King of Games, but back then he was just this little dude who brought his Game Boy to class and played it under the desk. The nicest, most selfless guy I’ve ever met in my life. And like, it was something that never would’ve happened. Huge asshole like me being friends with this dude who’s never even thrown a punch before? But yeah, he was my best friend, and he got me on the straight and narrow. And he got me playing games. It was a load of fun, and, uh, during lunch he’d bring in his Duel Monsters cards, and I’d get beat five times in a row. I was pretty terrible.

“But I, um, there was this moment in my life where my family was going through a tough time. My sister Shizuka was going blind and, you know, she needed to get an operation, and my family, we didn’t have a lot of money. And like, around the same time, Yugi gets invited to be in this Duel Monsters tournament, the Duelist Kingdom tournament, and the prize money is like ¥3,000,000, so I say to Yugi, ‘Yugi, I gotta be in this tournament, I gotta win the prize money so my sister can get her operation’! And with his help, I made it in there, total newbie at Duel Monsters, have no idea what I’m doing, and through this insane stroke of luck I get to second place. Course, in the end Yugi just gave me the prize money, I didn’t even need to enter the stinkin’ tournament, but it was a ton of fun. No hard feelings, Mai?”

He turns comically to Mai, who shoots him a bemused glance.

“Yeah, and it made me realize that I really, really loved dueling,” Jonouchi says. “Like, yeah, it’s a card game, but Duel Monsters is what helped me meet and connect with so many important people in my life. It got my sister an eye operation. It helped me get closer to my friends, to Yugi -- oh, and Bakura, Bakura’s here. Hi, Bakura.”

Bakura waves back timidly.

“And it helped me meet a lot of new people, too -- Mai, Marik, Rishid … and that idiot Kaiba, I guess,” Jonouchi continues. “You know, I don’t think he completely hates me! That’s why I’m the only person allowed to call him an idiot on his own broadcast! But uh, lesson learned, folks, that’s my success story. I was dirt poor, part of a broken family, and Yugi turned my life around, he got me into Duel Monsters, and uh, now I’m #15 in the International Pro Dueling League. I’m world famous, baby. 

“So, hey -- if it sucks now? It’s not always gonna suck. But you can’t sit around crying and waiting for it to get better, you have to work at it, you gotta prioritize the people who really care about you, you have to think about what you want, and, you know? One day maybe you’ll have someone like Yugi come along and everything will be worth it. Someone who really brings out the best in you.”

Jonouchi falls silent, letting his last sentence hang in the air. “Am I getting too sappy?”

Some mirth from the audience.

“Alright, sorry I bored you guys with my life story,” Jonouchi laughs sardonically. “You guys didn’t come here for my TED talk, you came here for Battle City Expo! So yeah, for the next hour and a half we’re gonna open up the panel for a Q&A with me and the other finalists -- let’s just hope this doesn’t get too crazy.”

Sho tunes in and out a bit as Jonouchi struggles to pick out hands from the enormous audience -- Sho is certainly out of his view, so he doesn’t bother to raise his hand -- and the duelists spend a great deal of time discussing their experience with Battle City, Duel Monsters, and the like. When the clock is about to strike twelve, he sees Jonouchi inching towards Marik to get the microphone back.

“But, yeah, I haven’t really been keeping up with all the new cards getting published,” Marik confesses. “But back in the day when there were about a thousand or so, we did sort of catalogue them. Back over to you, Jonouchi?”

“Yeah, actually, we’re gonna stop it right here,” he replies, yanking away the microphone. “Thanks, everyone, thank you! And we’ll be down in the booths for the meet-and-greet, again, until 5:15. I see a lot of you are lined up already, sorry if not all of you get in, but uh, we’ll be dueling, signing things, and I hope you guys have fun!”

The crowd slowly grows louder as Jonouchi and the other duelists descend from the stage, each being led to their respective booths in the field below. Sho’s heart starts pumping when he realizes he’s standing right in the front of the line -- alone -- as the attendants escort Ryou Bakura through the partition. After a few more minutes of him settling in, one of the attendants at last moves aside the velvet rope between Sho and the booth, and nods for him to step in.

Still shaking, Sho approaches the table at which Bakura is sitting, and he smiles at Sho placidly as he takes a poster from the table.

“Hello! Having a good day so far?”

“Yes … thank you,” Sho answers, still in awe of the fact that he’s standing so close to a Battle City finalist.

Bakura has a marker poised over the poster, which has an image of himself on it. “So, who should I make this out to; what’s your name?”

“I’m Sho, but, uh … actually, can you please make it out to my brother, Ryou?”

Bakura’s eyes twinkle. “Your brother’s name is Ryou, too?”

Sho nods.

“Wow … from one Ryou to another…” Bakura mutters as he signs the poster. Once finished, he passes it along to one of the attendants, who starts rolling it up and placing it in a plastic seal. “So, are you here to duel, too?”

“...Duel?”

“Well, only if you brought a Duel Disk,” Bakura explains. “I don’t know if they’re providing them. I’d better get mine out, too…” He reaches down below the table and unzips his bag.

“Oh -- yeah, I have mine,” Sho affirms, scrambling to open his bag as well.

Bakura places his Disk on his arm, getting up from the table and taking position on the opposite end of the field. “Don’t go easy on me!”

Sho laughs nervously, feeling as though he can’t really do anything but go easy on him with his own skill level. The prospect of having to duel in front of so many people is making him a bit jittery, but at least it’s not too embarrassing to lose to a dueling legend like Bakura.

“Ready?” Bakura asks him.

Sho nods, taking position himself. “Yeah -- let’s duel!”

“You can go first,” Bakura smiles.

“Thank you!” Sho draws his first card. “I’m gonna set a Monster and one card face down, and I end my turn.”

“Wow, I can’t wait to see what’s coming!” Bakura says cheerfully. “I draw. And I’m going to start off by summoning my Archfiend Cavalry!” On the field appears a ghostly knight, with 1900 Attack Points and 0 Defense Points. “I hope you’re prepared, because I’m going to attack your face down Monster Card!”

As the cavalier springs forward, Sho’s face down card flips over, and is revealed to be Truckroid -- its 2000 Defense Points knocks back the Archfiend Cavalry, bringing Bakura’s Life Points down to 3900.

“Oh, wow!” Bakura says. “You were really well-prepared! Well, I have nothing left to do but set a card face down and end my turn. You’re up!”

Sho smiles. “You’re a lot nicer in person than I thought you’d be. In the Battle City footage, you seemed kind of...”

“Scary?” Bakura chuckles. “Well, I get that a lot. At university I had a spot of trouble making friends because some people were a bit afraid to talk to me! But I can only imagine what it’s like for poor Marik.”

“Well, uh -- oh, wait, you were only being evil because Rishid was controlling your mind, right?” Sho gasps.

“Haha, uh, something like that,” Bakura explains. “I was a little out of it, myself.”

“Oh, okay,” Sho nods. “Ah, sorry, I almost forgot that it was my turn! Um, I set another Monster Card in Defense Mode. That’s it from me!”

“Playing very defensive,” Bakura observes jokingly. “Well, I have to step my game up now, don’t I? So I’m going to sacrifice my Archfiend Cavalry to Tribute Summon Dark Ruler Ha Des!”

An enormous Fiend Monster emerges onto the field with 2450 Attack Points, which is plenty to destroy Truckroid with--

“I activate my Trap Card!” Sho retaliates. “When you summon a Monster with 1000 or more Attack Points, my Trap Hole sends your monster right to the Graveyard!”

“Oh, no!” Bakura groans as his Monster disappears from the field. “Well, I’ll set another card and end my turn, then.”

“My move!” Sho says, drawing his next card. “I summon Drillroid to the field!” Just as he announced, Drillroid appears with 1600 Attack Points. “And I’m flipping over my Submarineroid into Attack Position -- my Truckroid, too! And I’ll start by attacking you directly with Drillroid!”

“Not so fast,” Bakura interjects. “I activate Sakuretsu Armor! When a Monster of yours attacks me, I get to destroy it!”

Sho curses himself for attacking so recklessly as his Drillroid is sent to the Graveyard. “Alright, well - I’ll keep attacking you directly! And after my Submarineroid attacks, it switches to Defense Position.”

Both of Sho’s remaining Monsters hit Bakura directly, bringing his Life Points down to 2100. “That ends my turn -- you’re up!”

“This is getting pretty exciting!” Bakura says as he draws. “Oof. I’m just going to set a Monster face down and end my turn.”

“Alright,” Sho grins as he draws a card. It occurs to him that this is the most fun he’s had dueling in quite a while. “I summon Jetroid!” The Monster in question appears on the field with 1200 Attack points.

“First, I’m attacking directly with Submarineroid,” Sho announces as he sends his monster out, lowering Bakura’s Life Points to 1200. “And I’ll use my Jetroid to attack your face down Monster!”

“That’s Mystic Tomato!” Bakura points out as the Monster is flipped over and subsequently destroyed. “When it’s destroyed, I’m allowed to summon a DARK Monster from my deck with 1500 or less Attack Points, so I’m sending out my Sangan!”

The fiendish Sangan appears on the field with 1000 Attack Points. “Ahaha … I forgot it only comes out in Attack Position.”

Sho deliberates for a moment, then deciding he doesn’t want to leave Bakura with the chance of Tribute Summoning again. “Truckroid, attack Sangan!” As their Attack Points are equal, both Monsters are destroyed and sent to the Graveyard.

“Well, when my Sangan is destroyed, I get to add a Monster with 1500 or less Attack from my deck to my hand,” Bakura announces, “So I guess I’ll add another Sangan.”

“Well, that’s it from me!” Sho says.

“Hope you’re ready,” Bakura counters, a mischievous look in his eye. “Because when I have three Fiend-type monsters in my Graveyard -- Sangan, Dark Ruler Ha Des, and Archfiend Cavalry -- I can banish them to Special Summon my Dark Necrofear!”

Sho steps back a bit as the eerie silhouette of the Monster rises onto the field, a bit unnerved by the adoration Bakura regards its rotting frame with. To make matters worse, it has 2200 Attack Points and 2800 Defense Points.

“Along with it, I summon the Headless Knight,” Bakura adds, bringing the Monster to the field with 1450 Attack Points and 1700 Defense Points. “And I think I’ll use it first to attack your Jetroid!”

“Hold on!” Sho exclaims. “When my Jetroid is targeted for an attack, I can activate a Trap Card from my hand, so I’m activating No Entry!!, and all your Monsters switch to Defense Position.”

“Well, I didn’t see that coming,” Bakura comments. “Wow, you’re good!”

“...You think so?”

“Well, I’m very impressed,” he compliments Sho. “This is quite the match! You’re not a Pro Duelist, are you?”

Sho’s face turns red. “Ah, I’m just a middle schooler.”

“Ah, I suppose you are pretty short,” Bakura points out. “Well, I end my turn!”

“I draw!” As soon as Sho looks at his card, he grins, then starts cackling with glee.

Bakura blinks. “Draw something good?”

“You better believe it,” Sho replies. “First, I activate Monster Reborn, which lets me summon my Drillroid back from the Graveyard! Next, I’m activating Polymerization, and I use it to fuse together my Drillroid and Submarineroid with the Steamroid in my hand to summon Super Vehicroid Jumbo Drill!”

The hologram display shows the enormous drill burrowing out of the ground, boasting an impressive 3000 Attack Points.

“Well, that’s definitely enough to destroy my Dark Necrofear,” Bakura notes.

“I’m not going for your Dark Necrofear,” Sho replies. “I’m attacking your Headless Knight!”

The Jumbo Drill barrels towards the Headless Knight in Defense Position, crushing it and dealing 1300 points of damage to Bakura.

“Wait, huh? But I had it in Defense Position…”

“Oh, well that’s the thing,” Sho explains, “When Super Vehicroid Jumbo Drill attacks a Defense Position monster whose Defense Points are lower than its Attack Points, the difference is dealt to you as damage!”

“That’s incredible!” Bakura says. “Well, you win! Congratulations!”

“...What?”

As Bakura indicates that his own Life Points are at 0, the crowd around Sho bursts into applause and cheers. When he whips his head around to look at the observers, out of the corner of his eye he spots the large television on the side of the stadium. Displayed on the monitor, he can see himself and Bakura at this very moment.

Sho feels as though he’s going to burst -- whether with pride or with nerves, he isn’t quite sure.

Bakura steps forward and bows to Sho, which he numbly reciprocates. Bakura is about to open his mouth to say something else when one of the attendants taps him on the shoulder.

“We need to keep the line moving, sir.”

“Ah, sorry about that,” Bakura apologizes. “Well, have a good day!”

The other attendants pull Sho out of the way for the next person in line, dismissively pressing in his hands the rolled-up poster before roping the area off behind him.

Sho stands there in a daze for a few minutes as other visitors around him idly congratulate him, watching as another guest goes up to Bakura’s table and urges him to sign her card before leaving as quickly as she arrived. Blinking several times, he suddenly recalls that Kenta went over to Jonouchi’s booth, and decides to go see if he can find him.

After putting everything away in his backpack, it takes Sho nearly twenty minutes to get through the crowd until he sees the large sign over Jonouchi’s booth. Much like the line he was just in, this one is roped off as well, and an attendant at its end appears to be routinely turning visitors away. However, there is a large crowd of people grouped outside the line that appear to be hovering over it.

After scanning the line for a sign of Kenta, Sho decides to look to the group huddling on the outside, and he’s glad he did -- Kenta is at the outer edge of it, watching Jonouchi’s booth intently. He doesn’t see Sho, so he has to call to get Kenta’s attention before he reacts.

“Hey, Marufuji,” Kenta greets him.

“Hi, Kenta!” Sho returns cheerfully. “So did you meet Jonouchi yet, or..?”

“The second I got there, they started turning people away,” Kenta complains. “But they said when the line gets shorter later they’ll start letting more people in. The line’s going fast, anyways.”

Even though he says that, as they wait together the particularly long line seems to hold up forever. However, after about four hours of waiting, the attendant at the end motions that he’s going to unrope the line. As fast as they can, Sho and Kenta scramble to reach it, but despite their efforts they end up behind about fifty other people.

Regardless, Kenta’s determination doesn’t sway, and as the line continues to dwindle down, Sho can see Jonouchi just twelve people away from them, fist-bumping a rather young fan of his. This moment is short-lived, however, for at the front of the line an attendant ropes off the booth while another goes through the line, telling everyone that the meet-and-greet is coming to an end.

Kenta tugs on the attendant’s sleeve. “Please, I’ve been waiting in line all day. Can I please--?”

“I’m really sorry,” she tells him, “There are a lot of people who didn’t get a chance, either. We need all visitors to go up to the stands at this time, unfortunately.”

With some persuasion from Sho, he manages to get Kenta away from the line and up into the stands with him as the Battle City finalists return to the central platform. The field is completely cleared out at this point, and the noise from the crowd gradually dies down with a signal from Jonouchi.

“Well, thanks, everyone!” Jonouchi calls out, microphone back in hand. “We all had a great time with you guys, sorry to everyone who didn’t get a chance to participate in the meet-and-greet, that’s probably Kaiba’s fault, he shoulda scheduled this thing better. I mean, I know I blame him for all of my problems--”

“And I blame you for all of my problems, Jonouchi.”

The crowd goes almost completely silent for a moment as a spotlight suddenly hits the entrance to the arena. Sho can’t quite make it out from the brightness of the light, but on the television he sees the unmistakable face of Seto Kaiba himself, wearing a headset microphone. As the crowd notices this, too, they erupt into a wild burst of applause.

None of the other duelists on the platform act surprised by Kaiba’s sudden appearance, but Jonouchi’s face is stretched into one of mock astonishment. “Oh, look at that! Thought you were too busy to show up, rich boy.”

“I was,” Kaiba says, as he makes his way towards the platform, “But from what I heard you’ve been throwing my name around a bit too arrogantly, so I thought I’d have to put you back in your place a little.”

“Woah, big words coming from a pea brain,” Jonouchi retorts. “What are you gonna do, come up here and punch me? You’d lose a fight with me in three seconds.”

“What a waste that would be,” Kaiba smirks. “This is a duel arena, after all. So why don’t you get your friends to clear off and we can settle this the old-fashioned way?”

The contrast in the lighting hides the other duelists standing up and taking their fold-up chairs away, so all of the attention is on Jonouchi as he walks to the other end of the platform. “Well, it has been a while since we last dueled. Hope you’re not scared I’ll beat you this time.”

As he reaches the platform, Kaiba almost aggressively slams his deck down into the receptacle. “Try me.”

\--

On the train ride back, Sho is in high spirits, and much more talkative than usual.

“That was so cool how Kaiba showed up at the end!” He chirps. “It was like, he came out of nowhere! Even Jonouchi didn’t see it coming! But I wish Jonouchi won, though. I feel bad that he always loses to Kaiba.”

“I mean, they planned the whole thing,” Kenta says bitterly. “It was the surprise duel listed on the schedule.”

“It was still cool, though,” Sho insists. “That was like, the best day I ever had in my whole life! We got to see Jonouchi, and I beat a Battle City finalist, and I got a poster for nii-san--”

“Shut up, Marufuji,” Kenta interrupts, completely deadpan. “Please just shut up.”

Sho freezes up. “Ah, I’m sorry, Kenta--”

“Just shut up, man.”

Sho forgets to ask for his Baby Dragon card back.


	10. December 2003

Sho has trouble following his mother’s logic at this point, but she seems to decide that Sho’s tutoring isn’t quite cutting it and trades out Mr. Hanazawa in favor of signing Sho up for cram school for his last few months before exams. She reassures him that this is the better option, as she sent Ryou in his last year of middle school to catch up with everything and he did very well.

It’s just as well for Sho, and after his excursion to Domino City he willingly decides not to spend more time with Kenta. He does not answer the phone when Kenta calls, and convinces his mother not to answer it, either. He does not go to see Kenta on weekends, deciding instead to stay in and watch television. Kenta never seeks him out or confronts him, and stops calling after a few days.

As winter break is nearing, Sho comes home from cram school one night to see his mother waiting for him at the kitchen table, a grim expression on her face. She tells him that she has some very bad news. He’s not sure what to expect -- did a family member pass away?

After some hesitation, Ms. Matsukata tells Sho that his brother’s best friend, Fubuki Tenjoin, has gone missing on the campus of Duel Academia. Authorities had spent days searching, but no trace of Tenjoin or the people that went missing alongside him were found. Ryou is very distraught about this, and Ms. Matsukata advises Sho to be supportive towards his brother when he arrives home for break to help him through it.

In addition, she prods Sho if he’s certain that he wants to go through with the Duel Academia exam.

He’s not sure -- not sure how to answer, at least. In his duel with his brother, he’s certain he proved that he’s not Duel Academia material, but … since then, he’s had a big win under his belt, right? And maybe that will be enough for his brother, too.

When Ryou does come home for break, he is certainly more glum than normal, and barely even says hi to Sho before he goes to shut himself up in his room. Their father drops by a bit later to check in on Ryou in private, but from the way he leaves Sho can tell it didn’t go very well.

At the table, their mother is going through some of Ryou’s belongings, and shows to Sho a photograph of Ryou standing oddly spaced apart from another student, who she indicates to be Tenjoin. Sho is certain that he’s seen this photograph before, but something that he can’t quite put his finger on seems different about it.

Seemingly out of pity for Ryou, Ms. Matsukata puts much more effort than she normally would into Christmas Eve, getting a large order of fried chicken for the three of them alongside a themed Christmas cake decorated with Kuribohs. She even brings Sho’s console and games out of the basement, encouraging Sho and Ryou to spend some time playing together. Sho doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he doesn’t own any co-op games (or a second controller, for that matter), so he and Ryou decide to take turns on Gradius and switch out when the other loses. Ryou’s turns are much shorter than Sho’s, as the latter appears to be more adept at playing.

Sho tries to make small talk with Ryou during his turn so he doesn’t get bored. “Hey, uh … who was that other guy you were friends with?”

“Fubuki?”

“The other one.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Uh…” Sho tries to think of a name, but it’s not coming to him. “Sorry, I guess I forgot.”

They sit in silence for a while until Ryou finally speaks up again. “Do you still have the Power Bond card I gave you?”

Sho’s concentration is broken, but he barely even acknowledges the “Game Over” screen. “The -- why do you ask?”

“Just wanted to see it,” Ryou says nonchalantly.

“Um…” Sho has a rather guilty expression on his face.

“Don’t tell me you lost it.”

“I … gave it away, actually.” Sho slumps over. “I’m sorry…”

Ryou scowls. “That was the only card I ever gave you, Sho.”

“But -- but you told me you didn’t want me to use it unless I was good enough,” Sho blurts out. “I wanted someone who was good enough to have it.”

“So who did you give it to?”

“My friend…”

“Kenta?”

Sho doesn’t respond.

“Sho, I gave you that card because it was one of the best I had,” Ryou tells him. “If you didn’t want it I wish you had just given it back to me.”

Sho can’t really disagree with that, but rather than saying anything, he simply buries his face in his hands, not watching as Ryou gets up from the couch and retreats back upstairs.

—

Evidently, their mother is unable to get Ryou out of his room for the rest of the night, but on Christmas Day she pushes Sho to surprise Ryou with his present sometime that day when he emerges from his room.

Ryou does come out of his stupor by the afternoon and joins Sho and his mother at the table for a quiet dinner that evening, so afterwards Sho rushes up to his room and retrieves the rolled-up poster still in its plastic seal, thankfully finding Ryou sitting on the couch in the family room.

As Ryou takes notice of Sho, he extends the poster out to him. “Merry Christmas, nii-san.”

Wordlessly, Ryou takes the poster from Sho, breaking the plastic seal and unrolling it. As Sho peeks over Ryou’s shoulder, he gets a glimpse at the poster of Ryou Bakura -- he certainly looks more sinister on it than he did in person, wearing his near-iconic blue striped shirt and a large gold ornament around his neck. In marker at the top of the poster, it reads:

Dear Ryou, 

Hope all of your wishes come true!!!

Ryou Bakura

Great name, by the way!!

“Oh,” Ryou says in surprise. “Thank -- thank you, Sho. Thanks so much … how did you get this?”

“I was at the Battle City Expo,” Sho smiles. “And I met him there.”

“Battle City Expo?”

“Yeah, it was really cool. And I got to duel him -- and I won!”

“Really.”

“Yeah, I … beat a Battle City finalist,” Sho continues. “Do you -- do you think maybe that makes me good enough for Duel Academia--?”

“No.” Ryou’s expression turns serious. “Bakura’s not any sort of Pro Duelist. His only duel on record was against Yugi Muto … which he lost. So it doesn’t mean anything.”

Sho stares up at Ryou silently, having no words to respond with.

“Don’t apply to Duel Academia, Sho,” Ryou insists. “I mean it.”

As soon as the words leave Ryou’s mouth, Sho bolts away up the stairs, shutting himself in his room and locking the door. No one tries to come in, regardless, and after half an hour when Sho feels as though he’s done crying he feels rather tired, deciding then and there to turn the lights off and go to bed.

Unfortunately, he can’t sleep.

Sho spends the entire night drowning in his own misery, thinking about his grades that weren’t quite good enough for Tokuhara, and his dueling that isn’t quite good enough to beat Kenta, and how not even Hitomi wants to be his friend, and how he’s not good enough for his mother, and how he just keeps disappointing his father, and how stupid he is for thinking he’d ever have a shot at going to Duel Academia (or even Satsuma, for that matter), and how he’ll most likely spend the next few years at a low-ranked private school with the other dropouts while his brother joins the Pro Dueling League and becomes world famous and forgets that Sho even exists.

Sho wishes things were better. He wishes he could be like Katsuya Jonouchi, and have his whole life turn around like magic. He wishes he was a good duelist, had good grades, had a future, had friends who really wanted him around, and that he had a brother who was actually, really proud of him.

Not even Ryou. He wishes he had a different brother.

Sho wishes he had a brother who really wanted to spend time with him, and when Sho is scared, he’d gently tell him that it’s going to be okay and he’ll help him through it.

He wishes he had a brother who would help him be a better duelist. Even when Sho loses, he’d tell him he did a good job and that he’ll do even better next time.

He wishes he had a brother who would never abandon him. Even when Sho is at his lowest point and everything seems wrong, he’d just give Sho a big smile and hug him and tell him that things are going to get better. And that he still cares about him, no matter what.

Some dreams are too good to be true, aren’t they?

\--

It’s during the last few days of the month that Sho and his mother sit down to go over his high school applications.

Sho will be applying to three schools -- Satsuma High School, his second choice for public school; Matsuhisa Private High School, his safety net school for if he fails the exam; and Duel Academia.

As she goes over the applications with him at the table, Ms. Matsukata pinches the bridge of her nose, but Sho can’t tell whether she’s tired from a long day of work or frustrated with the papers.

“Are you okay, Mom?” Sho asks. “Sorry about everything.”

“Why are you sorry, Sho?”

“Well … you know, I’m not going to be taking the Tokuhara exam,” Sho says. “It’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” she shoots back. “I should’ve gotten you on the right track earlier. In your first year, I was so focused on getting Ryou ready for his exams and caught up with all his work after that whole monastery thing, and almost I forgot about you, and … well, now we’re in all of this … Satsuma’s not a bad school. I looked into it.”

“Thanks…”

“I just want what’s best for you,” his mother insists. “I thought you might have a chance at Tokuhara, but you’re -- well, you’re getting something almost as good, Sho. You know I push you to be your best because I love you, right? And this trimester you showed that you can really do it if you work hard and you’re not distracted.”

She leans in to give him a tight embrace before continuing. “Now, just be honest with me, Sho -- do you really want to apply to Duel Academia?”

Ryou said no. He doesn’t want him there.

But he’s good enough … right? Can’t he at least try..?

“Y...yeah, why?”

“You don’t feel like anyone’s forcing you to apply? Your father’s not pushing you?”

“No, I, I really wanna go…”

“Just making sure.” She shifts herself back over to the table. “He calls me impossible because he thinks I push you and Ryou too hard, but he’s the one who seems to always try and force you to do what he wanted to do, it seems like. I don’t know what it is with him.”

“Um … Mom?” Sho asks hesitantly. “Do you want me to go to Duel Academia?”

She pauses for a moment before answering, gently putting her hand on his back. “If that’s where you want to be, Sho. I just don’t know how it’s going to work out … your brother didn’t really have any issue with getting in; he kept winning all those tournaments, and he was invited to go train with the Cyber Art Dojo, and then, you know, from there it’s wasn’t like they could turn him away from Duel Academia -- and his grades were fantastic, too. But I don’t know how it might turn out for you. You can apply, definitely -- but we’ll see how it goes, alright?”

“...Okay.”

She looks him dead in the eye. “You do still want to apply, right?”

By the next morning, applications to all three schools have been sent out.


	11. January 2004

Though his exams begin next month, Sho is sent in for his private school interview in January, oddly. Matsuhisa Private doesn’t require an interview, thankfully, but his mother drives him about three hours across prefectures to get him to his interview for Duel Academia, reviewing the potential questions they’ll ask him along the way.

The building where Sho will have his interview certainly doesn’t look like it’s part of Duel Academia, almost appearing like a regular office building. However, when they step into the elevator and press the button for the third floor, the doors open to what appears to be a perfectly regular student waiting room. He sees a lineup of students already seated in chairs outside the door, and after they check in at the front desk he takes his seat alongside them, staring blankly at the notices pinned up on the wall while other students’ names are called. After about half an hour--

“Sho Marufuji?”

His mother nudges him to get up and go greet the interviewer, and he makes his way down the hall to the source of the voice. The interviewer smiles at Sho as he approaches, setting him at ease a bit, and they stop and bow to each other.

“Good morning,” the interviewer greets him. “Why don’t you have a seat inside?”

Sho nods, following him into the office. Though he remains calm on the outside, within his head Sho is going over all the interview questions his mother told him about, remembering his prepared answers about cram school and grades and his interest in dueling -- and, as such, the first question throws him completely off guard.

“Mr. Marufuji, you are the younger brother of ‘Kaiser’ Ryou Marufuji, correct?” the interviewer asks, his eyes crinkling.

“Oh..! Yes, that’s right,” Sho answers, doing his best to sit up straight.

The interviewer gives him a tight-lipped smile, scribbling something down on his clipboard. “And on your file, you won first place in the Fukushima Prefectural Junior Division Tournament in 1998, and second place in the same tournament in 1999. Yes?”

“Yes, I did,” Sho agrees.

“And,” the interviewer says, lifting a paper back on his clipboard, “You were one of twenty-three guests who managed to defeat a Battle City finalist at this past November’s Battle City Expo, we noticed. Yes?”

Sho is starting to feel a bit more hopeful. “Um … yeah!”

More writing on the clipboard. “Now, Mr. Marufuji, can you please tell me what middle school you attend?”

“Taiji Middle School,” he replies.

“Tell me a bit about it.”

“It’s pretty nice,” Sho says, suddenly feeling a bit nervous again. “It’s … pretty close to my house, only about a mile away. The teachers are really friendly, and there are a lot of different clubs and activities. And we have a sports festival that people from all over town go to.”

“Do you do any club activities or sports at your school?”

“Um … no.”

“I see … what are your school responsibilities?”

“I usually sweep the classroom,” Sho answers. “But I’m not in the student council or anything, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay, and what do your parents do for a living?”

“My Mom is a business analyst, and my Dad is a banker.”

“Can you tell me a bit more about them? Just in general.”

“Uh … well, I live with my Mom,” Sho says. “My parents are divorced. My Mom usually, uh, gets back from work around six or seven o’ clock at night, but she really wants me to do well in school, so she makes sure I go to cram school and everything. My Dad lives across town with my Stepmom, and I see them about once or twice a month. They take me out for food and buy me presents a lot.”

“What does your stepmother do?”

“She works at the same bank as my Dad.”

“Besides Kaiser, do you have any other siblings? Step-siblings?”

“No…”

The interviewer spends a long time writing on his clipboard before continuing. “So, what other schools are you applying to?”

“Satsuma High School and Matsuhisa Private High School,” Sho responds.

“And is Duel Academia your top choice?”

“...Yes.”

Suddenly, the interviewer stands up. “That’ll be all. Thank you for coming in, Mr. Marufuji.”

Sho stands up and bows, thanking him, but as he heads out the door the interviewer calls out to him once more. “Kaiser’s brother … you should be really proud of that.”


	12. February 2004

Sho takes three different exams in the month of February -- which is around the average number that most students take, but he finds it very exhausting.

The Duel Academia exam requires him to drive back up to the same location in which he was interviewed the previous month, and it’s there that the students are informed that, if and only if they pass the written portion of the exam, they will be allowed to move on to the practical portion of the exam the next month, and they will be notified of this both on the website and through the mail.

After months of tutoring, prep work, and cram school, Sho is fairly confident in his answers on the academic portion of the exam. He can’t say he is quite as adequately prepared, however, for the part of the exam where he’s expected to name cards from memory, identify their function, and sort them by Monsters, Spells, and Traps. In retrospect, he wishes he’d done a bit more than look through his own card collection and skim the Industrial Illusions database in preparation, but he’s quite familiar with many of them.

Regardless, he manages to walk out of the exam convinced that he’d failed completely.

...And then he starts second-guessing himself, like he always does.

Back in class one day afterwards, he’s surprised during lunch when Hitomi approaches him, her friend Sanisha next to her. They invite him to sit and have lunch with them in the classroom.

“You take all of your exams yet?” Hitomi asks him.

Sho nods with a mouthful of rice before swallowing. “Yeah, um … so, which schools did you take the exam for?”

“Well, Matushisa was my safety net…” Hitomi begins, “And the other exam I took was at … Tokuhara.”

“Your parents let you!?” Sho exclaims.

“Yeah, they caved,” Hitomi grins. “So, yeah, I’m really excited! Sanisha’s going, too.”

“Well, she roped me into it,” Sanisha laughs.

“Yeah, so, it’s gonna be cool!” says Hitomi. “Sho, which exams did you take?”

“I took the Matsuhisa exam too,” Sho responds. “And uh, for public school I took the Satsuma exam--”

“Wait, Satsuma?” Hitomi interjects. “Did you change your mind about Tokuhara? I thought--”

“Uh, my GPA wasn’t high enough,” Sho replies sheepishly.

“But I thought you … I’m sorry, Sho,” Hitomi sighs.

“It’s fine, don’t worry!” Sho reassures. “Well, I also took the exam for Duel Academia, so that’s kind of cool, I guess.”

Hitomi blinks. “Duel Academia?”

“Is that the uh, the school KaibaCorp opened up?” Sanisha asks.

“Where is that?” Hitomi rejoins.

“Um, it’s in the Ryukyu Islands,” Sho explains.

“Oh, wow, that’s so cool!” Hitomi responds. “And uh, what do you do there?”

“That’s where they teach you how to play Duel Monsters,” Sanisha informs her. “Like, professionally.”

“Oh, okay! Is that your first choice?”

Sho shrugs. “Guess so.”

“Alright! Well, I hope you get in,” Hitomi offers.

“Thanks,” Sho says back.

As students start filing back into the classroom and Hitomi and Sanisha begin packing up their lunch boxes, Sho approaches Hitomi, his nerves a bit sporadic.

“Hey, uh, Hitomi?”

“Yeah, Sho?”

“Uh…” he hesitates. “Why did we stop sitting together?”

The smile drops from her face. “Ah, sorry Sho -- Sanisha and I got like, really close over the summer from choir, so, you know … sorry, I should’ve told you!”

Strangely enough, Sho feels as though a weight is lifted from his shoulders. “No, it’s okay! I get nervous about stuff like that, too.”

That evening when Sho gets back from cram school, he finds his mother waiting for him on the couch with a photo album in her lap, and she invites him over to sit with her.

She seems to be in a nostalgic mood, and they flip through several pictures from Sho and Ryou’s early childhood. In fact, there’s a comparative lack of pictures of their parents, aside from when they are in the same photo as Ryou and Sho. Ms. Matsukata seems quite entertained by several parts where Ryou is walking Sho to elementary school, Ryou is holding a trophy from his first Duel Monsters tournament, Sho is at the table on his birthday with Ryou’s arm slung over his shoulder -- and they’re both smiling.

Sho, however, stares the longest at a picture that he recognizes as the time when Ryou gave him his Power Bond card -- in the photograph, Sho holds it up right in front of the camera, grinning from ear to ear as Ryou looks on in the background, his face flushed.

\--

Sho isn’t even sure that Kenta is going to be there, or why he’s even going, but sure enough, Kenta is at their usual spot in the park on Sunday afternoon.

He’s not alone, either. There are two other boys with him (who are from a different middle school, judging by their uniforms), and all three seem to be enjoying themselves.

At least, they were -- but as soon as Kenta catches sight of Sho across the green from them, his smile freezes. He turns to the other two boys briefly and says something to them before turning back to face Sho. When he doesn’t move, frozen still in place, Kenta decides to make his way over to Sho, his friends trailing behind from a distance.

“Hey, Marufuji,” Kenta calls to him. “Three months since I last saw you. What’s your excuse this time?”

Sho contemplates for a moment. “Well, I--”

“Actually, don’t answer that. I was right about you, man. You never really wanted to be my friend, right? I just happened to be the only other guy in class who liked Duel Monsters, and then you ditched me when you decided you didn’t like me anymore.”

Kenta’s words pierce Sho like a knife through the chest. He’s right, isn’t he? That’s the only reason Sho even started talking to Kenta. And that’s why he started avoiding him. Right..?

“I’m--”

“What, you’re sorry? That’s what you always say, right?”

“Sh-shut up, Kenta,” Sho snaps. He decides that Ryou was right, actually -- Kenta’s a pretty bad friend.

“Why are you even here?” One of the boys next to Kenta asks.

Sho is doing his best to hold back tears, breathing in deeply through his nose. “I want my Power Bond back. You have it with you, right?”

Kenta seems incredulous. “Oh, your Power Bond card? Let me see if I have it…” He takes his deck out of his pocket, sifting through it and pulling out the card in question. “This one?”

“Yeah, I want it back.”

“Well, that’s funny,” Kenta responds, “Because last I checked, it’s my card. You gave it to me.”

“Just give it back, Kenta…” Against Sho’s wishes, a tear falls down his cheek.

“Well, it’s not like you needed it,” Kenta argues. “You’re probably not good enough to play it, anyways. Better to keep it in the deck of someone who can actually use it, right?”

“I’m gonna need it back for -- for when I’m at Duel Academia!” Sho blurts out.

Kenta is dead silent for a solid five seconds … then he bursts out laughing. Sho’s cheeks are red with embarrassment as Kenta’s two friends join in.

“You’re going to Duel Academia?” Kenta breathes, wiping a tear from his eye. “Seriously? Are you like, trying to become a Pro Duelist or something? You can’t even beat me! And I just duel for fun!”

“If…” Sho takes a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “If I beat you, will you just give me my card back?”

Still laughing to himself a bit, Kenta responds by dropping his bag down and taking out his Duel Disk. “Yeah, sure, Marufuji. But if you lose, I want your whole deck. Still in?”

Sho can’t risk losing his deck -- not if he wants to take the practical exam. “That -- that’s not fair. I just want one card. Can’t you just ask for your Barrel Dragon or something?”

“Trust me, this card’s worth more than your whole deck,” Kenta informs him. “But I guess you don’t want it that bad, so…”

...Then again, Sho can’t just back out. If it were Katsuya Jonouchi, he would accept the stakes without hesitation.

“O...okay. I’ll do it.” Sho takes his Duel Disk out of his bag, slamming his deck into the slot.

Kenta does the same, taking position across from Sho while his friends gather on the sidelines. “Let’s duel! Oh, and I’ll let you go first -- you’re gonna need it.”

“Fine,” Sho says. “I summon Drillroid in Attack Position!” Drillroid appears with 1600 Attack Points. “I set a card face down, and I end my turn.”

Kenta’s friends crowd around him, looking at his starting hand.

“You’re gonna cream this guy,” one of them comments.

“Seems like -- seems like you don’t have that much trouble making friends after all,” Sho calls to Kenta. “Or do you think these guys are gonna ditch you too?”

Kenta scowls. “Don’t you dare.”

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” One of Kenta’s friends shouts back.

“I AM NOT!” Sho yells, balling up his fist.

“I met Genji and Matsumoto at the Yonezato entrance exam,” Kenta explains. “Thanks for asking.”

“Well, I didn’t -- wait, Yonezato?” It suddenly occurs to Sho that in the year that he’s known Kenta, not once did they ever talk about their grades or school prospects -- it really was all Duel Monsters. “How high is your GPA, anyways?”

“Higher than yours, I guess,” Kenta answers nonchalantly. “You’ll probably be lucky if you even get into a school. Which exam did you take for public, Musashito?”

“You--!”

“Oh, right, my turn,” Kenta interrupts. “I activate my Continuous Spell, Second Coin Toss! I hope you’re smart enough to know what that does, because I’m not going to explain it. Next, I summon my Twin-Barrel Dragon! When it’s summoned, I get to flip two coins -- if they both land on heads, I’m destroying your Drillroid!”

Heads.

Tails.

“Oh well,” Kenta sighs. “Second Coin Toss.”

Heads.

Heads.

Sho’s Drillroid bursts off the field, leaving him wide open.

“Twin-Barrel Dragon, attack him directly!”

With a great roar, the dragon deals 1700 points of damage to Sho, bringing him down to 2300 Life Points.

“Alright, I set one card face down and I end my turn,” Kenta finishes.

“My move,” Sho says, drawing his next card. “First, I activate Mystical Space Typhoon, so you can say goodbye to your Second Coin Toss!”

“Oh no,” Kenta says, deadpan.

“And next, I summon Steamroid!” Steamroid appears on the field with 1800 Attack and Defense Points. “Steamroid, attack Twin-Barrel Dragon!”

Steamroid rams into Kenta’s Monster, destroying it and bringing Kenta’s Life Points down to 3900.

“Thought you really did something there, huh?” Kenta says. “If a DARK Machine-type Monster of mine gets destroyed, I can summon Desperado Barrel Dragon from my hand.” Towering above Kenta appears the hologram of a pitch black, sharp-looking mechanical dragon with 2800 Attack Points.

“Ugh … I set one card face down and end my turn,” Sho sighs.

“My turn,” Kenta says smugly, drawing a card. “Desperado Barrel Dragon, attack his Steamroid!”

With one concise shot, Desperado Barrel Dragon blasts Steamroid apart, putting Sho’s Life Points at just 1300. 

“That’s it from me,” Kenta says. “This’ll be over on my next turn, Marufuji. That’s a promise.”

Sho sucks in his breath as he draws a card, groaning as he sees a (rather useless) Cycroid.

“Didn’t get what you wanted?” Kenta taunts.

“I summon Jetroid,” Sho says through gritted teeth -- Jetroid has only 1200 Attack Points, and he’s summoning it in Attack Position. “And I end my turn.”

“Aww, is that your way of telling me you surrender?” Kenta laughs.

“Stupid move,” one of his friends (Matsumoto?) comments.

“Well, my turn.” Kenta draws a card, and when he sees what he has, he gets a wild glint in his eye. “You’ll never guess what I just drew.”

“No way,” his other friend (Genji?) laughs derisively.

“Well, it’s really over for you now, Marufuji,” Kenta affirms. “I activate Power Bond! I’m fusing together my Barrel Dragon and my Blowback Dragon to summon my Gatling Dragon!”

With the effects of Power Bond, Gatling Dragon rolls onto the field with 5200 Attack Points. “I activate Gatling Dragon’s effect -- flip three coins, and every Heads destroys one of your Monsters! And you only have one, so...”

Heads.

Heads.

Heads.

Though Sho’s Jetroid is destroyed instantly, he doesn’t miss a beat. “I activate Call of the Haunted, and bring my Jetroid back to the field in Attack Position!”

“Well, that was useless,” Kenta shrugs. “Just so you know, I’m not an idiot. I can see your face down Trap. But it’s not sticking around, because I activate Giant Trunade! So all cards in the Trap and Spell Card Zones return to the hand.”

Begrudgingly, Sho places his Trap back in his hand.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Kenta grins, “Last but not least, I activate Limiter Removal, so my Monsters’ Attack Points are doubled!” Desperado Barrel Dragon’s Attack Points become 5600, while Gatling Dragon’s rise to an insurmountable 10400 Points.

“Wow, that’s overkill,” Probably Matsumoto gasps.

“It’s what he signed up for,” Kenta reasons. “Ready for this, Marufuji? Maybe this’ll make you realize why you’re not Duel Academia material. Not that they’ll even let you in without a deck, probably.”

Sho furrows his brow. “Just attack me already.”

“If you say so,” Kenta nods. “Gatling Dragon, attack his Jetroid!”

Gatling Dragon makes a harsh grinding noise like a motor as it charges up, aims directly for the little Jetroid, and--

“I activate the effect of my Jetroid!” Sho exclaims. “When it’s targeted for an attack, I get to activate a Trap Card from my hand!”

“What the hell?” Kenta yells. “It can’t do that!”

“Yeah, it can,” Sho retorts. “So I’m activating Waboku! For the rest of the turn, I don’t take any damage, and my Monsters can’t be destroyed.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Kenta growls. “I activate my Trap Jammer--”

Kenta doesn’t have a Trap to activate.

“I don’t know if you know this, Kenta,” Sho says a bit condescendingly, “But when you activate Giant Trunade it returns all Trap and Spell cards on the field to the hand. That includes yours. Not that it really mattered, because I can activate as many Traps as I want--”

“SHUT UP, MARUFUJI!” Kenta howls. “Desperado Barrel Dragon, attack his Jetroid!”

The attack has no effect.

“That’s all you can do, Kenta,” Probably Genji sighs.

“You shut up, too!” Kenta looks miserably at his hand (which, as Sho knows, only contains Trap Jammer), trying to figure out what to do. His friends look on silently, seemingly afraid to say anything. At last, Kenta sighs deeply. “I set a card and end my turn.”

Instantly, both Kenta’s Monsters are destroyed and he takes 2600 points of damage, lowering his Life Points to 1300.

“Okay,” Sho says cheerfully, drawing his next card. “I summon Cycroid!” The Monster in question appears with 800 Attack Points.

Kenta groans. “That piece of shit?”

“And both my Monsters attack you directly!”

One after the other, Jetroid and Cycroid launch themselves at Kenta, at last bringing his Life Points down to 0.

“You couldn’t even take me out with anything good,” Kenta mutters. “But I don’t know what I was expecting, since all your cards are shit.”

“No bad cards, just bad duelists,” Sho says as he closes up his Duel Disk. “And I guess you weren’t a good enough duelist to use Power Bond.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re good enough, either!” Kenta retorts.

“I know,” Sho agrees. “But a deal’s a deal. So can you please give it back to me now?”

As Sho comes closer to Kenta, he doesn’t respond or move for a moment. Then, almost immediately, he takes the Power Bond card from his deck, puts the rest back in his pocket, and holds it between his hands as though he’s going to tear it in half.

Sho panics immediately, lunging forward. “No--!”

“Just messing with you, man,” Kenta says, instead throwing the card in Sho’s face. It starts fluttering to the ground, and Sho clumsily grabs it in midair. “Just take it. I don’t want it anymore.”

Gingerly, Sho places the card in his pocket. At the same time as Kenta, he starts putting his Duel Disk away in his backpack, but he unzips the front pouch and takes out another card.

“You can have this back,” Sho offers, handing Kenta his Barrel Dragon.

Stunned, Kenta rips the card from Sho’s hand. “You’re just giving this to me?”

“In exchange for my Power Bond,” Sho explains.

“...Have fun at Duel Academia, Marufuji.”

“Have fun at Yonezato, Kenta.” Sho turns and walks away, not looking back until he reaches his house.

\--

When he opens the door, Sho can hear his mother’s voice from the kitchen. She hears the door open, and is waiting for him when he reaches the other room.

“Sho just walked in,” she speaks into the phone. “Say hi to your brother?”

She and Sho both wait a moment, and she hands the phone to him.

“Uh … hi, nii-san.”

“I heard you finished your exams.”

“Yeah -- uh … actually, I have something to tell you.”

Sho waits for Ryou to ask what it is, but he says nothing.

“I got my Power Bond card back. The one that you gave me.”

“...Congratulations.”

“Uh … yeah, I just thought you might want to know.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Ryou replies. “You didn’t apply to Duel Academia, right? I couldn’t get a straight answer out of Mom.”

“Um … no..?”

Sho’s face turns beet red, and though Ryou can’t see him, he’s not quite sure whether he believes him or not.

“Okay--”

“I mean, yes. Yes, I did.”

Ryou is silent for a very long time. “...Pass the phone back to Mom.”


	13. March 2004

Sho waits with bated breath for his exam results to come in the next month, knowing that he’ll never live it down if he doesn’t pass the Duel Academia exam -- but he might never live it down if he does pass, either. But he’s certain that Ryou definitely hates him now, either way.

He spends some time convincing himself that, hey, maybe if he doesn’t pass the exam (most likely), this will all blow over and Ryou will probably forget about it and they’ll just go back to normal and only have to see each other during the summer and winter break.

That goes out the window, of course, in the first week of March, when Sho is mailed his test results from both Duel Academia and Satsuma at once.

His mother sits him down on the couch so that they can take a look into each of the envelopes, one at a time, starting with Satsuma.

Sho … passed the Satsuma exam. That’s all that matters to him, and he barely even reads the rest of the letter before he urges his mother to open the other envelope. As nervous as he is, he just wants to get it over with -- just definitively find out if he failed or not.

Rather than a direct answer in the letter, they are given a transcript listing the top 150 test scores. Anxiously, they skim down the list and at last see:

#119 | Sho Marufuji

Though his mother beams at him, Sho knows that he’s not in quite yet -- and with such a low test score, he has even less of a chance of being accepted, even if he does pass the practical exam. After all -- they only accept about a hundred students each year, and Sho is in the lowest possible bracket.

Sho does want to go to Duel Academia. He really does, no matter what his brother thinks of it. But all he can do is hope that he doesn’t screw up on the next portion of the exam.

In fact, the letter asks him to report to a designated address just three days after they receive the news, and that coming Sunday his mother ends up driving him for hours to the same city where he’d had his interview and his written exam. The exam center is on the other side of town this time, however, in a large domed building that undoubtedly houses a duel arena. As they drive into the parking lot, their progress is painfully slow as they wait for several students to cross the street towards the building.

When they pull into a parking space, Sho’s mother turns to him. “Do you want me to come in and watch?”

Sho whips his head to look at the crowd funneling into the stadium, noticing a particular lack of adults. “I … I can go in by myself. But thanks, Mom.”

“Okay … I’ll pick you up at the end.” To Sho’s surprise, she suddenly leans over and hugs him tightly. “You know I’m proud of you, right?”

“...Thanks, Mom.”

“All that studying paid off,” she murmurs into his shoulder. “I’ve got two boys going to Duel Academia … I’m proud of you both. Now, you’d better go inside, I don’t want you to be late, Sho.”

He nods, scrambling out of the car as he waves goodbye to her, then making his way towards the entrance of the stadium. After checking in with his papers with the registrar, he manages to get in the door through the crowd of students.

Once inside, he sees that many of them have started to settle down in the bleachers, which are relatively uncrowded by comparison. However, when he looks across at the other end he feels as though he’s been hit in the head by a brick.

Though it’s almost too far for him to see, on the other side of the bleachers, he watches as his brother, Ryou, unmistakably leans against the railing … what is he doing here? Did he come to watch Sho take his exam..?

He can’t be sure, exactly, as Ryou doesn’t even notice Sho when he walks in. In fact, he appears to be engrossed in conversation with a girl next to him.

Still keeping his distance, Sho presses himself against the railing and leans to see better. He’s almost captivated by how beautiful she is, so he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that she’s talking to his brother. Is she his friend? His girlfriend? Maybe he would have mentioned it if he had a girlfriend… 

“Buongiorno,” a voice booms throughout the stadium. “Everyone, please settle in; thank you for coming today. I am Instructor Cronos de Medici, teacher and Headmaster of the Obelisk Blue dorm at Duel Academia.”

Sho’s eyes dart towards the source of the voice, finding the instructor standing in the bleachers far across from him. He’s rather flamboyantly dressed, and wearing just enough makeup that Sho is able to see it quite clearly on his face.

“Today is a very important day for all of you,” Cronos continues. “As it will determine the rest of your lives. One hundred and fifty of you made it this far -- you should be proud! But Duel Academia only accepts the best … and I mean the very best. The one hundred best. That’s right -- while about a third of you will go home today crying into your nonna’s bosom, the top students will rise and take their places as champion duelists at our esteemed learning institution. Best of luck to you all!”

Cronos’s words strike some kind of bizarre fear into Sho’s heart, but he has little time to mull it over as another voice starts up from the intercom. “All examinees please look to the screen display to see their listed match for the practical examination. At this time, we ask that the first group of examinees report to the field.”

The screen display lights up, displaying a chart of examinees between #141-150. Sho concludes that they must be going backwards in the order -- which means that he’ll be up soon.

He’s surprised to see that there are quite a few students in the early stages of the exam who lose against the examiners, but there are many more who do win their duel. The duels go by quickly, and before Sho knows it the brackets extend between #111-120. At this time, Sho is suddenly painfully aware that his brother is in the audience.

As he heads down to the exam field, Sho looks back up at where Ryou and the girl are standing, but neither are looking at him. Did Ryou see him before when he didn’t notice, or..?

Sho is forced to tear his eyes away from him, however, when he reaches his designated exam field. Standing before him is one of the exam proctors, holding his Duel Disk at the ready.

“Sho Marufuji?” He asks.

“That’s me,” Sho answers, readying his own Duel Disk.

The examiner nods. “Ready to duel? You get to go first.”

“Um … right.” Sho is feeling at least a bit confident -- but when he glances back towards Ryou, he sees that his brother is staring directly at him.

\--

Sho isn’t sure how he managed it, but he won.

The duel wasn’t difficult, necessarily, but he could feel Ryou’s eyes burning into his back the entire time. Sho is certain that his performance was embarrassingly bad, as he makes his way back to the stands, recalling every stupid move he’d made. For certain, he was lucky to have scraped by -- and would be even luckier if he got in after that.

He hazards a look back at Ryou, but his attention is drawn to the field where the duels are still going on below. There’s one point where Sho thinks he looked up at him, briefly, but he’s not sure. Regardless, Sho watches nervously as the numbers dwindle down to the last ten applicants, signifying the exam to nearly be over.

Sho at last takes a breath and tries to wipe the sweat from his brow when, from behind him, a boy around his age sprints over to the railing, crashing shoulders with him. “Oh! They’re already at it!”

He’s taken no notice of Sho - hasn’t even bothered to apologize - but is completely transfixed on the duel going on down below between the applicant Misawa and one of the examiners. Sho supposes he can’t really spare any indignance against the stranger - he seems too cheerful to have someone like Sho bother him, anyways. Considering he arrived so late, he’s probably just a spectator, maybe here to cheer on a friend or sibling.

“Hey - which one is he? The guy dueling right now?”

The other boy is talking to Sho. He thought he’d just calmed down, but he can feel his heart thumping in his chest again as the boy stares down at him with a vapidly cheerful expression. Instead of answering, he jabs a thumb up at the screen display in the back, showing the examinee listed as #001.

“Cool!” The other boy turns back to look at the duel, chuckling as Misawa easily demolishes his opponent with a Ring of Destruction card. “That Number 001 guy’s combo was really amazing, huh?”

“Yeah, it was.” Sho feels he’s finally caught his breath. “That’s Misawa - Number 001 because he scored the highest on the written test.”

“Oh, so that’s what the exam number means?”

“Well, yeah,” Sho continues. “Whether you get in or not depends on how well you did on the entrance exam, plus how you did in the practical portion. I managed to win my duel and all, but even I don’t know if I’ll get in. I’m … Examinee Number 119…”

Even Sho is embarrassed when he begins pitying himself out loud, but he is startled when the other boy shoves him roughly on the back of his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it! You’ll pass if you’re lucky!”

If he’s lucky… 

The boy’s expression is still stuck in the same cheery smile. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m Number 110!”

Sho is taken aback. “Wait - you’re an examinee, too?”

“Yup!”

Too bad for him. “Sorry, but the duels for everyone numbered over 100 were the first to go.”

The boy’s expression finally changes to one of dumbfounded realization. It’s spiteful, but … Sho feels a bit better knowing that there’s someone else here who doesn’t seem leagues above him. Strangely, Sho seems downright smart compared to him.

“If only my train hadn’t come in so late…” the boy groans. “But the guy at the entrance said I was technically on time, so maybe they’ll still let me go!”

“Yeah,” Sho agrees, offering him a small smile. “I hope so.”

“Hey, uh…” the boy looks back at the screen, which is currently blank. “You know what? I think we’re both gonna get in! So when I see you at Duel Academia, we’ll say hi to each other, alright?”

“Huh?” Sho is startled at how assertively he said it, without a trace of doubt in his voice. They’re both going to get in. Sho is going to get in?

That train of thought is interrupted when Misawa exits the arena, making his way up the steps of the bleachers right towards Sho. 

As he sits down in the top row just in front of them, the boy next to Sho calls out, “Wow! You’re a real tough duelist!”

Without so much as a bit of surprise at the outburst, Misawa shrugs. “I suppose.”

The boy leans his arm casually over the railing. “Well, you’re probably the second-best out of this year’s examinees.”

Misawa’s eye twitches. “What did you-”

The arena falls silent as the intercom starts up again. “Examinee Number 110, Judai Yuki, please report to Exam Field 4.”

“Alright, then,” Judai grunts as he picks himself up off the railing. “I’m up.”

“Hey, you.” Misawa, who has been standing painfully still, scowls as Judai begins descending the steps. “Why am I the second best?”

Judai, who’d seemed not to notice Misawa’s interjection at first, suddenly whips around and grins back at him. “Because I’m the best!”

Misawa scoffs in bewilderment as Judai continues to hop down the bleachers, but Sho can’t stop thinking about how confident he is, despite everything. Even though they scored at the bottom rung, their chances of getting in at the bottom of the barrel, on top of Judai himself showing up late … he’s not worried at all. And he thinks they’ll both get in.

Sho hopes he’s right.

From across the arena, he steals another glance at Ryou, but his eyes are glued to Judai as well.


	14. April 2012 (Epilogue)

“So he’s an accountant?”

Manjoume is hovering over Sho as he skims the webpage on his laptop. The lounge adjacent to the arena is fairly empty, as it’s reserved for Pro Duelists to use before their matches, but the two of them are at least in the company of one security guard at the door.

“Guess so,” Sho replies.

“Damn, he’s smart,” Manjoume curses. “That sucks.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s doing well,” Sho says, closing the laptop. “I haven’t seen him since my last day of middle school, I think.”

“Isn’t this the guy who stole your Baby Dragon?”

“Oh, he didn’t steal it,” Sho answers. “I gave it to him and he just forgot to give it back to me, is all.”

“That’s stealing,” Manjoume hisses. “I dunno, I don’t think he deserves an autograph from Jonouchi. I know I wouldn’t give him one.”

“Ah … maybe,” Sho says, scratching his head. “Still, I sort of wanted to get an autograph for someone who’d really like it.”

“You could get one for me,” Manjoume jokes. “I want it!”

Sho laughs a bit at that, stopping when he hears the door creak.

“Marufuji in here?”

Sho and Manjoume are deathly still as they watch Katsuya Jonouchi receive a nod of affirmation from the security guard, after which he proceeds into the room. Almost instantly, Sho and Manjoume scramble up from the couch and bow to him.

“Nah, c’mon.” Though Jonouchi bows back, he holds out his fist for Sho to bump. Getting a bit excited, Manjoume holds his out too, and Jonouchi tentatively fistbumps him as well.

“Figured I’d say hi to my opponent before our match,” Jonouchi grins. “You pumped or what?”

“Yeah, I’m really excited!” Sho replies.

“I’m a big fan, Mr. Jonouchi,” Manjoume adds.

Jonouchi balks. “You’re a big fan of me? You’re like, five ranks higher than me. Should be the other way around, Thunder Boy.”

Though Manjoume is glowing at the compliment, Sho can’t help but agree -- Manjoume is #4 in the Pro League, after all.

“But yeah, I finally get to take on Kaiser Jr.,” Jonouchi continues, turning back to face Sho. “I’ve heard a lot about you -- we’re gonna have a great match, alright?”

“Yeah!” Sho smiles. “Good luck!”

“Oh, uh--” Jonouchi leans in a bit. “I heard about what happened to your brother. I’m real sorry, is he doing okay?”

“Um, yeah,” Sho responds. “I mean, it’s been on-and-off for a few years now. He just got out of the hospital, and my Mom and I have been looking after him at home. He just thought it was better to retire at this point, you know?”

“Ah, I see,” Jonouchi nods. “Well, if it’s for the best … he really went out a Hall of Fame-r, though. Some people didn’t give him any slack for quitting while he was at #1, but you know, gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Right,” Sho agrees. “Oh, uh, before I forget, can I ask you a favor? If it’s not too much trouble…”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Sho rustles a pen and notepad out of his coat pocket. “...Autograph?”

Jonouchi snickers, taking the pen from him. “Sure thing … want me to make it out to Kaiser Sho?”

“Um, actually…” Sho hesitates. “Can you make it out to Judai Yuki?”

Manjoume’s jaw practically hits the floor. “What?”

Jonouchi shrugs. “Alright, unless there’s any objection…”

Sho nudges Manjoume, who settles down a bit as Jonouchi finishes signing it, handing it back to him just as the door opens again.

“Mr. Jonouchi?”

“Oop, sorry, gotta go,” Jonouchi apologizes, turning to the exit. “Good luck out there tonight, Kaiser! Don’t go easy on me!”

“I won’t!” Sho calls after him as Jonouchi closes the door. Once they’re alone again, Manjoume turns to Sho with a look of slight bewilderment.

“For Judai?” He says incredulously. “The guy who disappeared off the face of the earth? You’re gonna be holding onto that thing forever!”

“He’ll come back for it,” Sho says confidently. “Just a hunch.”

The door opens once again. “Mr. Marufuji, your match is in five minutes.”

Manjoume claps Sho on the back. “Get out there. You win tonight and you’ll be in the top 10, got it?”

Wordlessly, Sho nods, heading out to the stadium as the noise from the crowd drowns out everything else.


End file.
